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“ THKN THE STJIM’LY HKCAME GREAT EN()U(4H FOR ALL ” 

{Pcif/e P) Frontispiece 





THE COMMUTERS 

The Story of 

A Little Hearth and Garden 


By albert BIGELOW PAINE 

Author of “THE VAN DWELLERS,” 
“THE BREAD LINE,” “THE 
GREAT WHITE WAY,” 

Etc. 



NEW YORK 

J. F. TAYLOR & COMPANY 

MCMIV 






l r-'~n n« i» a M i ,, , ii. nu ruMHU 


I ^ Liei^ARV OP 

I Tv«c Cop)<i» RKl 3 #iv«(i 

WAP 1904 

Cepyri^ht Entry 
hl/<tv, lu I t(ff <4- 

cuss ^ XXb. N®, 
0 

COPY A. 


COPVBIGHT, 1904 
BY 

J. F. TAYLOR & COMPANY 


QTolonial Ptess 

Eloctrotyped and Printed by C. H. Slmonds & Co. 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 


Contents 


PAGE 

I. 

A Garden of Dreams i 

II. 

The House of One Desire 17 

III. 

The Finding of Adelia 33 

IV. 

The Beginning of All Things .... 58 

V. 

Pussum . 78 

VI. 

Paste-pot and Step-ladder 91 

VII. 

W. Braikup and Barney 102 

VIII. 

Gardens of May 1 20 

IX. 

A Corner in Denims 132 

X. 

The Trail of the Builder 148 


VI 


Contents 


PAGE 

XI. 

The Marigold Path i68 

XII. 

Pussum’s Wife et A 1 189 

XIII. 

Casting up the Account 200 

XIV. 

City Guests 215 

XV. 

The Passing of Adelia — and Loula . . 227 

XVI. 

The Precious Ones 241 

XVII. 

The Things I Have Not Told . . . 257 

XVIII. 

As to Happiness 270 

XIX. 

As to Further Happiness 290 

L’Envoi 297 


List of Illustrations 


Then the supply became great enough 

for all p) Frontispiece 

They were usually “looking for their 

tools ” P^g^ 1 1 7 

I also saw it brought steaming to the 

table “ 1 7 1 

She was handling a pair of six-pound 
ducks as if she were in a gym- 

a 


nasium 


219 



THE 

COMMUTERS 


I. 

A Garden of Dreams, 

O UR first summer in the sub- 
urbs had been preparatory. 
After four years of flat 
life ” we were not overparticular, 
and had been inclined to be 
pleased with things as we found 
them. The air was balm; the 
beneficent quiet an anodyne for 
all human ills. We praised indis- 
criminately whatever came to 
hand, and were in no mood to crit- 
icize, remodel, or improve. 

As for the Precious Ones, they 
romped and rejoiced, and found 


2 


The Commuters. 


fault with nothing but their meal- 
times, which they thought should 
come oftener, and with their bed- 
times, which they thought should 
not come at all. Watching them 
grow brown and hearty, the Little 
Woman and I rejoiced likewise, 
declaring that God had made the 
country, and that it was good. 

But with the coming of winter, 
we began to plan. Perhaps we did 
not confess it, but the old habit of 
restlessness, and the need of 
change, were not wholly dead. 
We could not now look up a new 
habitation and call in the moving- 
man, as in the bygone van-dwell- 
ing days, nor did we wish to. We 
were satisfied, on the whole, and 
congratulated ourselves that our 
moving-days were over. 

But we did like to experiment. 
We liked to change things about 
to see how they would look in other 


A Garden of Dreams, 3 


rooms, and we altered our sleep- 
ing arrangements no less than 
three times in one month. It gave 
us quite the old migratory feeling 
to be taking the beds to pieces, 
squeezing through the doors with 
the mattresses, and knocking things 
against the chandeliers. Perhaps 
the Precious Ones did not find this 
altogether satisfying. They de- 
clared that to them there was noth- 
ing that quite took the place of 
moving-day, when all restraints 
had been as naught, and they had 
raced in and out with a wild 
freedom, or gone on breathless 
voyages of discovery through a 
new suite of empty rooms. To 
their elders, it was sufficient unto 
the day and season. But as the 
year deepened we began to medi- 
tate, and to have plans. Dear 
heart! it is good to be young and 
unsatisfied, and to dream! It is 


4 


The Commuters, 


also good that the way of fulfil- 
ment is not revealed to us. 

Arriving, as we did, in June, our 
first little garden had been a slight 
affair — experimental, as it were. 
Yet it had prospered and so pre- 
pared us for greater things. We 
owned the lot next to us, and the 
rear end of it we marked off for 
the sacrifice. We agreed that the 
grass was poor there, and that there 
was too much to mow, anyway. 
Also that another year we might 
as well have things growing that 
would be of more value than chick- 
weed and dandelions. Then we 
decided to fence the little plot, and 
for that purpose I removed from 
the top of the house a rather re- 
markable railing, which the archi- 
tect perhaps considered ornamen- 
tal. He must have done so, for 
he put similar adornment on a 
number of other houses in our 


A Garden of Dreams. 5 


neighborhood. We did not regard 
it with pleasure as a part of our 
abode, but it was just the thing 
for the garden, and matched the 
house in general design and color 
scheme. I superintended this piece 
of reconstruction, and did most of 
the work. I may say here that it 
was accomplished with more 
promptness and less waste of nerve 
tissue than any of the improve- 
ments that came later. The little 
double step which I built, one half 
leading down into the garden and 
the other to the front path, was a 
durable and even an artistic piece 
of work, accomplished with but a 
few minor accidents and scarcely 
any profanity. We played with 
these steps, and planned how the 
morning-glories would grow and 
cluster about them when spring 
came. The Precious Ones enjoyed 
them, too, and ran in and out, from 


6 


The Commuters, 


the garden to the path and from 
the path back to the garden, as 
often as two hundred times an 
hour. I suspect that it was the 
success of these steps and the fence 
alteration that encouraged us later 
to larger undertakings — undertak- 
ings that seemed beyond my me- 
chanical skill and education, 
though as I reflect upon the matter 
I am inclined to wonder if any one 
could know less than those chosen 
to succeed me. But I am antici- 
pating — I am not quite through 
with the fall gardening. 

Two men came, and, turning 
over the little plot, took out some- 
thing like three wagon-loads of 
excellent cobble, replacing them 
with other loads of a class of mer- 
chandise more likely to encourage 
the, growth of vegetables. We 
realized now why the grass had 
languished at that end of the lot. 


A Garden of Dreams. 7 


They also planted some plum and 
peach trees for us, and certain 
vines. Considering the fact that 
I could not watch them every mo- 
ment, they did these things rather 
well. I was only obliged to move 
part of the vines, which was less 
fatiguing than if it had been the 
trees, or the three loads of cobble. 

On the whole, they were accom- 
modating, those gardeners, and 
anxious to please. If I wished a 
peach-tree to bear in August, they 
assured me that it would do so. If, 
upon reflection, I decided that 
September was the better month 
for that particular variety of 
peaches, they were ready to adjust 
the season instantly, and without 
extra charge. I altered the date 
on an Early Crawford as many as 
three times before I got it to satisfy 
me. I know I have the very best 
of everything, too, and all true 


8 


The Commuters, 


to name.’’ The men told me so. 
They assured me that there were 
no other tree men who were so 
strictly reliable in the matter of 
varieties, or who could get quite 
the special attention they received 
at the nurseries. They paused now 
and then to cite examples of their 
superior service, where results that 
were surprising, even amazing, in 
the way of growth and bearing, 
had followed. I suppose it is 
mingling with nature that makes 
all gardeners and tree men so 
guileless — so full of truth in many 
varieties, and of the gentle desire 
to please. 

The Little Woman had not been 
idle. Seed catalogues began to ar- 
rive presently — wonderful pic- 
torial affairs with illuminated fruit 
and flower displays on their covers. 
A few we had from the season be- 
fore, but a good many new ones 


A Garden of Dreams. 


came by mail, and yet others from 
our good and thoughtful neigh- 
bors, who realized something of 
what we had undertaken. The 
Precious Ones revelled in the art 
work of these publications, and 
with each new arrival divided and 
disputed their claims. The Little 
Woman and myself found it hard 
to get a satisfactory look at the se- 
ductive pages, and for a time civil 
war seemed imminent. Then the 
supply became great enough for 
all, and, lost in their delectable 
contents, we constructed rare 
dream-gardens, oblivious to som- 
bre skies and pelting rain. 

Ah, me! what is more fascinat- 
ing, when skies are gray and dead 
leaves fall, than a splendid cat- 
alogue wherein the fair flower of 
hope is perennial, and seed-time 
and harvest shall never fail? To 
picture a little plot, now harden- 


lO 


The Commuters, 


ing with November frosts, grow- 
ing warm and fecund with April 
sun and shower, ready to welcome 
in its bosom those tiny germs of 
life that are to be had in magic 
buff packets whereon are pictures 
that know no blight, and instruc- 
tions so simple that even in mid- 
winter the garden of dreams be- 
comes a joy as real as the blossom- 
ing beds of June! 

We studied the catalogues as- 
siduously, and “ hardy,” half- 
hardy,” “ rows eight to twelve 
inches apart,” “ time of planting,” 
and much similar phraseology be- 
came a part of our daily conversa- 
tion. At intervals I made diagrams 
of different bed arrangements, 
showing how we could have more 
space for corn and less for beans 
and salad, or contrariwise. Then 
I showed how we might have small 
beds of a good many things, with 


A Garden of Dreams, 1 1 


some cockscombs and zinnias and 
marigolds between, in the good 
old-fashioned way which we both 
loved. When it was not too bleak 
we went out into the little en- 
closure itself to study still further 
its possibilities and give reality to 
our dreams. One morning I went 
so far as to lay out its main di- 
visions by making some paths of 
coal ashes. This was the first ac- 
tual step in form, and the Little 
Woman began immediately to pre- 
pare lists of seeds. 

Being not yet Christmas, it was 
still full early to begin ordering. 
Still, there is nothing like being 
forehanded in matters of prepara- 
tion. Besides, to have things really 
under way would shorten the time 
of waiting. 

There seemed to be a good deal 
that we had decided to have. At 
times I had vague doubts as to the 


12 


The Commuters. 


matter of room. We wanted corn, 
beans, lettuce, radishes, parsley, 
rhubarb, beets, onions, spinach, cu- 
cumbers, canteloupes, and a pump- 
kin-vine, as a matter of course. No 
garden would be complete without 
these, and then we wanted all the 
old-fashioned flowers, and the old 
savors, too, — such as thyme, mar- 
joram, and basil, — and a sun-dial. 
Also, we had determined to try 
Brussels sprouts, of which we were 
both fond, and we fell a prey to 
sundry other temptations, that with 
foliage luxuriant and verbiage at- 
tractive beset us on every page of 
our alluring lists. It seemed a good 
deal to get into a space somewhat 
less than thirty-five feet square, 
with the few odd corners of the 
previous year, but we determined 
to economize our ground as we 
had heard the German gardeners 


A Garden of Dreams. 13 


did, and leave no square inch 
untilled. 

The Little Woman voluntarily 
became purchasing agent, and al- 
most daily I mailed a stuffy little 
envelope containing an order and 
“ enclosed stamps ” to some pro- 
ducer of reliable seeds and con- 
vincing catalogues. We sent orders 
as far West as Iowa, where there 
was a firm whom the Little 
Woman declared she knew sup- 
plied good seeds, though I have yet 
to learn by what special means she 
acquired this knowledge. I suspect 
that she was influenced by their 
attractive “ combination offers,” 
whereby the purchaser could ob- 
tain a certain number of desirable 
varieties for what seemed an ex- 
ceedingly reasonable amount. The 
word “ collection ” invariably at- 
tracted the Little Woman, while 


The Commuters, 


14 


seven papers for ten cents ” was 
positively irresistible. 

Perhaps she was afraid the sup- 
ply of collections would run short, 
or that the seed market would be 
cornered before spring, for when 
I suggested at last that possibly we 
were overdoing the thing, she con- 
tinued to order these combinations 
surreptitiously, this being the only 
time but one I have ever known of 
her deceiving me — the other hav- 
ing been when once, long before, 
she had ordered from an insistent 
picture canvasser, as a present for 
me, an enlargement of her own 
portrait, taken with that of our 
elder hope — the latter in her in- 
nocent babyhood. The picture was 
not an artistic success, and the 
frame seemed unnecessarily or- 
nate. I did not see it for three 
years after it was delivered, though 
to keep it concealed from me in the 


A Garden of Dreams, 15 


narrow limitations of apartment 
life, and during our many migra- 
tions, must have exhausted a good 
deal of ingenuity as well as nerve 
force on the part of the Little 
Woman. The burden of guilt be- 
came too much for her at last. She 
broke down and confessed, select- 
ing a moment of weakness on my 
part for the purpose. 

She was less careful in the mat- 
ter of the seeds. I suppose she 
knew that my own inclinations 
would make me lenient. Once, 
looking for the corkscrew, I found 
three different assortments of 
pansy seed in the knife drawer, 
while various other unfamiliar col- 
lections surprised me now and then 
by coming to light from unex- 
pected corners and at unusual 
times. She knew full well that I 
could not resist the spell of those 
illuminated buff packets and the 


i6 


The Commuters. 


rattle of their magic contents. I 
merely ventured an opinion as to 
the number of acres we could now 
plant if we had them. Then, get- 
ting fairly into the spirit of it all, 
I went over the catalogues once 
more and made up and ordered 
a rather general selection of my 
own. 


The House oj One Desire. 1 7 


II. 

The House of One Desire. 

H aving now got the house 
well seeded down, we began 
to give some degree of at- 
tention to other matters. As the 
holidays drew near, and the lumi- 
nous catalogues became less in evi- 
dence, we discovered that for some 
reason our home lacked that cheer 
and comfort so necessary to the en- 
joyment of gloomy fields. For 
one thing, the house was new, and 
the walls still white. This was de- 
pressing at times, even when the 
rooms were quite warm, but there 
was a greater need than that of 
decorated walls. On a dismal Sun- 
day it became acute. Sometimes 


i8 


The Commuters. 


we wandered from room to room, 
seeking a welcoming corner, and 
vaguely wondering what it was 
we craved that our satisfactory 
rugs and furniture did not supply. 

It was better at evening, for then 
we could gather about the shaded 
lamp, but by day the dreariness 
palled and made the Sundays long. 
We realized our full need at 
Christmas-time — a happy Christ- 
mas, too, with a tree, a turkey, and 
some desirable additions to our 
bric-a-brac collection, lacking only 
that one rare nucleus, — without 
which Christmas in the country 
never will be complete, — the 
Open Fire! 

We knew now what it was that 
we wanted. We had been without 
it so long we had forgotten, and in 
the whirl and jangle of flat life 
had not missed it. Now all at once 
the desire for it became so great 


The House of One Desire. 19 


that it overshadowed for a time the 
bright catalogues, our seed pack- 
ets, and our fair garden of dreams. 
It was useless on a sunless day to 
sit before a Chippendale cabinet or 
to toast our feet over a Turkish 
rug, even though we had paid 
more for these than the cost of a 
new chimney. They would not 
take the place of a chimney and 
the life-giving radiance of the 
open fire. These, before another 
winter, we would have, even at the 
sacrifice of a good many other 
things we had been considering. 

It was not that we were cold — 
at least, not very cold. With the 
energetic little furnace below 
stairs we could make the house 
reasonably warm, even during a 
northwest gale. What we wanted 
was the serene comfort of seeing 
the fire itself, of poking at it, and 
making it leap up the chimney, — 


20 


The Commuters, 


when all outside was gray and 
night gathered along the fields. 
We said, and it is true, that a home 
without a fireside is not a home at 
all. We wondered what the man 
who built the house had been 
thinking of, not to have remem- 
bered this fact. He had given us 
a number of things we would have 
been willing to spare, if only the 
cost of them might be applied on 
a single open fire : the ornamental 
railing on the front veranda we 
could part with, also the carved 
oak mantels that were now but 
hollow mockeries, and seemed 
built mainly to hold some cu- 
riously mottled tiling which even 
with the aid of a screen we could 
not wholly forget. We said that 
we would have accepted a cheaper 
railing; that the plainest, oh, the 
very plainest of mantels would 
have sufficed, if only it had sur- 


The House of One Desire. 21 


rounded that joy of joys, that ra- 
diant jewel of the household, an 
open fire! Sometimes, when I was 
sweeping snow from the walks and 
porches, the thought that there was 
no bright blaze waiting for me 
within made me almost morbid. I 
was moved to poetry on the sub- 
ject: 

“To cheerful warmth did we aspire 
Where the tide of fortune tossed us, 
Till our one desire was an open fire 
No matter what it cost us.” 

We went so far as to try to utilize 
for the time being one of the pretty 
imitation mantels by making it 
serve as a framework for an imita- 
tion grate, to be filled with im- 
itation coal and heated by the 
imitation gas supplied from our 
metre. But, alas, even this we 
could not have, for when the work- 
men came it was discovered that 


22 


The Commuters, 


our mantels were even more hol- 
low and more of a mockery than 
we had supposed. The bronze 
fronts covered only some thin plas- 
ter and lath so inflammable that 
even the imitation fire we had 
planned was pretty certain to result 
in at least one genuine conflagra- 
tion, with more or less annoying 
results. We were not as yet ready 
to sacrifice our rugs and our furni- 
ture, or even the house itself, for 
the sake of the fire thus obtained. 
True, we did imagine ourselves 
joining hands with the Precious 
Ones and doing a wild midnight 
dance about the leaping flames, 
getting for once thoroughly satu- 
rated with the glow and warmth 
and crackle of it as the blaze 
sprang upward to the stars. But 
it would be such a brief joy — and 
then the morning — it would 
likely be cold and windy — we 


The House of One Desire, 23 


would burn our clothes and get 
ashes in our hair. 

So we sighed and went back to 
our catalogues, our seed packets, 
and our plans. In time, the latter 
began to be definite. We would 
have an outside chimney built be- 
hind one of our toy mantels and 
so give it purpose. We would also 
leave an opening on the floor 
above, where we had concluded to 
locate our library, for the reason 
that the Precious Ones and their 
friends were in the habit of storm- 
ing daily the room below stairs 
intended for the quiet company of 
books. We said we would be mag- 
nanimous and give it to the chil- 
dren, for keeps. We would put 
into it some things that nothing 
could make worse and let them 
have it. 

I may say here that we did con- 
vert the library into a playroom. 


24 


The Commuters. 


and with results that on the whole 
have been satisfactory. It is 
hardly a gratifying place to one 
of aesthetic tastes, and it requires 
skill even in daylight to wend your 
way among the assortment of little 
chairs and carriages and tables set 
for parties, attended all day long 
by dolls of many sizes, and in va- 
rious stages of decay. At night it 
is a land infested with snares and 
dead-falls, a place to be shunned 
by making the circuit of the hall 
and kitchen, so to avoid disaster 
and fervid words. But happy is 
the heart of childhood! careless of 
the requirements of art and order, 
or of the retributions of eternity. 
To them the days are all feasting 
and junket and wassail. Dark or 
bright, the mock banquet goes 
merrily on, while the hours are 
all sunny hours that speed with 
song and laughter and comforting 


The House of One Desire. 25 


scrimmage, and bring bedtime all 
too soon. 

Brief, heedless childhood! Take 
the best room in the house if you 
want it! Turn it into a repository 
for damaged vehicles and a feast- 
ing-place for decadent dolls! It 
will not be for long. Soon, oh, 
soon it will be orderly again, and 
clean, and silent, and we shall hun- 
ger for the grimy little hands, the 
noisy little feet, and the babel of 
confused tongues! The days fly 
and the years pass, and you will be 
young such a little time ! On with 
the banquet! Bring all the headless 
dolls, and those both with and with- 
out stomachs, and let them feast! 
Put the library anywhere ! Rather 
would I have it on the roof, than 
that the dolls should climb the 
stairs to dine! 

My old habit of digression is 
strong. I must do something for 


26 


The Commuters, 


it and go on with my story. We 
planned the chimney, as I have 
said. We also talked about paint- 
ing, paper-hanging, and of re- 
claiming the attic for my study. 

The Little Woman was not alto- 
gether in accord with the last- 
named idea. The attic seemed a 
bleak and draughty place, where 
shadows lurked and dust formed 
windrows on the creaky floor. 
She did not quite foresee its possi- 
bilities, and, to be entirely truth- 
ful, I had some misgivings of my 
own, though I kept up a good front 
and assured her that she would not 
know the place when I was 
through with it. 

We almost forgot the need of the 
alterations in the joy of planning 
them. It was not until we called 
in some people to make figures 
that we came down to hard real- 
ities again, and felt the true great- 


The House of One Desire. 27 


ness of our need. In the chill that 
followed their estimates, the bare 
walls became still more disheart- 
ening, the useless mantels a yet 
greater mockery, while even the 
little frozen garden with its ash- 
strewn paths seemed so unprom- 
ising under the drear February 
skies that we were driven to an- 
other revel in our neglected cata- 
logues, and several new packages 
of hollyhock seed, before we were 
equal to a new plan — this time for 
an altogether different improve- 
ment; one more expensive than 
anything heretofore considered. 

I am convinced now that it was 
a summer architect that planned 
our house. Otherwise he would 
not have put three north windows 
— two little ones, with a big one 
between — in the dining-room, 
and left out a fireplace. It was 
some man who spends his winters 


28 


The Commuters. 


in a climate where they run open 
cars all the year round, and if my 
petitions are heeded he will spend 
eternity in a still more fervent lat- 
itude. When the gales of March 
came down from the Adirondacks, 
and the heat fled to the other end 
of the house, our dining-room be- 
came a dismal place indeed. We 
kept the north shutters closed, and 
put an assortment of bedding be- 
tween the shutters and the glass, 
but this, in spite of the two east 
windows, where a polar sun some- 
times looked in, added much to the 
gloom of the comfortless little 
twelve by twelve box that had been 
so cheery through the days of sum- 
mer-time. We said that another 
year we would have storm-win- 
dows, at least. And then, suddenly, 
I was seized with an inspiration in 
the way of a plan that made all 
before it seem poor and trifling. 


The House of One Desire, 29 


I feel that the few and simple 
words with which I am obliged to 
convey the idea will give but a 
feeble hint of what the hope of 
its realization meant to us on that 
bitter St. Patrick’s Day of its con- 
ception. Briefly, then, it was to 
take out those three terrible win- 
dows on the north, convert the 
opening into an arch leading to 
an eight-foot extension backed by 
a glorious fireplace — a radiant 
and boundless joy! The two nar- 
row windows we would reset 
across the corners, while the large 
one would do for a library exten- 
sion above, where, in the same new 
chimney, there would be still an- 
other open fire that would lend 
serene enchantment to our friend- 
ship with the quiet books. 

The idea was breath-taking. We 
spoke of it in subdued voices — 
almost in whispers, perhaps fear- 


30 


The Commuters, 


ing that it would take fright and 
leave us. Then we became excited 
and forgot that we were cold. Also 
we became reckless. Let the mock 
mantels go ! One was in the play- 
room. The Precious Ones had no 
taste, anyway! They could put 
their toys on it! The one in the 
parlor we would partially conceal 
with furniture and bric-a-brac. 
Let everything go — everything 
but the extended dining-room, 
with its stately arch, its real old- 
fashioned brick and mortar mantel 
of our own planning, its open fire 
of crackling logs and dancing 
flames! It would be the easiest 
thing in the world to accomplish! 
All we needed was money, and we 
would save and pinch and do with- 
out everything else we had planned 
— everything except the garden, 
of course — for this one great boon! 

I made a carefully drawn plan 


The House of One Desire. 31 


at once. I designed the fireplace 
and brick mantel after one at my 
club in town, and sketched the little 
window-seat that was to occupy 
one entire end of the extension. 
I even hung some pictures on the 
wall, set some plates and pitchers 
and things on the mantel, swung a 
crane with a gipsy kettle above 
artistically designed flames, while 
before the blaze, casting its shadow 
on the fire-lit floor, I placed a great 
easy chair! Once more our house 
was a house of dreams, — our gar- 
den abloom, — our world a dream- 
world! I did not sleep well that 
night, and, behold, when I waded 
home from the station next even- 
ing, the barren fields were filled 
as with June glory, for fortune, 
who sometimes neglects, but never 
quite deserts, her trusting children, 
had once more smiled, — a labor 
of long months, another dream. 


32 


The Commuters. 


had found at last acceptance and 
reward. Not only could we have 
our beautiful extension, but our 
painting and our papered walls, 
and we could reclaim the desert 
waste at the top of the house where 
I had planned my den. We might, 
of course, have applied the sum 
on our payments, but there was 
no hesitation, or if there was it was 
scarcely noticeable, when we re- 
membered this alternative. We had 
found out at last what we wanted, 
and Providence had put the means 
of possession in our hands. We 
were in no mood to quarrel with 
Providence. Eagerly we watched 
the sun in its slow pendulum swing 
to the northward, and stepped at 
last into the first sunny days of 
springtide, with all the joy that 
hope and health and fond anticipa- 
tion can bring to the heart of 
youth. 


The Finding of Adelia. 33 


III. 

The Finding of Adelia, 

I MUST pause here to record 
the advent of two new elements 
— the Tiny Small One, and 
Adelia. 

The Tiny Small One came along 
on a bleak day, to end happily one 
of those epochs of mingled hope 
and anxiety, which have filled the 
world with love and little folks 
since joy first blossomed in the 
Happy Valley and morning lay 
upon the Hills of Eden. 

The new epoch did not begin 
peacefully. The Tiny Small One 
was not contented with things as 
she found them, and knew of but 
one way to express disapproval. I 


34 


The Commuters. 


cannot imagine where she learned 
this method of protest, but wher- 
ever it was, she had been care- 
fully taught. When she was some- 
thing less than a moment old she 
followed the lamp with eyes that 
perhaps but just before had closed 
on the glories of eternity. Then, 
lifting up her voice, she denounced 
our feeble glow in terms that could 
be heard by all the people who had 
lent us seed catalogues, and saved 
us the necessity of carrying the 
news. We thought she would con- 
clude presently, and were rather 
rejoiced by the fact that at least 
she had good lungs. But as the 
hours lagged on and the end was 
not in sight, we said that we were 
more than satisfied with her vocal 
strength, and that we would induce 
her to take the rest needed by us 
all. 

We tried several arguments. 


The Finding of Adelia, 35 


Neighbors came and went, and left 
an assortment of teas and good 
advice. She declined the advice. 
She took the teas with protest. I 
did not blame her much, for there 
were a good many kinds. I don’t 
know just how many, but I remem- 
ber camomile, catnip, and anise, 
and English breakfast with a dash 
of rum. 

She showed her good taste by 
preferring the last named. When 
the combination worked properly, 
the household lay down to brief 
periods of pleasant dreams, and 
was not particular as to the locality 
of its couch or the nature of its dra- 
peries. Then the dynamo would go 
off again and the machinery start. 
I constructed an arrangement over 
the gas-jet to warm her different 
kinds of beverages, but nothing 
seemed to get hot except my fingers 
and my temper, and I remember 


36 The Commuters, 


saying some things that I have 
been trying ever since to forget! 

It was a week of education. I 
have always been rather partic- 
ular about my pillows and my 
hours of retiring. It had been my 
customary remark, when sleep was 
the subject under discussion, that 
unless I retired regularly I could 
not knit up the ravelled sleeve 
of care.” I could do it now. I 
could knit at any odd moment 
when the Tiny Small One chose 
to attend to her own knitting, and 
so give me a chance. I could knit 
standing up, simultaneously heat- 
ing tea and my fingers over a Wels- 
bach mantle. I could even slip 
in a few stitches while the spoon 
travelled from the cup of camo- 
mile to the lip of lamentation, and 
as for pillows, I found that the 
slender uprights of an iron bed 
not only sustained but soothed me 


The Finding of Adelia. 37 


to sweet oblivion whenever the 
Tiny Small One yielded briefly her 
privilege and gave the uprights 
and oblivion a chance. 

Even the Precious Ones became 
critical. They had been pleased 
with the general idea of a minia- 
ture addition to their household, 
— a doll that could move and feel 
and see and cry, — but the selec- 
tion we had made did not please 
them. She overdid the last item. 
They suggested that we take her 
back ” and exchange her for a 
more satisfactory specimen. 

And now came the other inter- 
esting experience — to us, I mean. 
We discovered one day that we 
must replace our household assist- 
ance, and that we had but a brief 
time in which to readjust matters. 
Fortunately Sunday was at hand, 
and, securing first editions and an 
early train, — the latter by a 


38 The Commuters, 


scratch, — I set out for the city to 
pick up any desirable domestic 
worm that might not be already 
captured, and that would agree not 
to turn under the pink-heeled tyr- 
anny of the Tiny Small One. 

On the way in I read feverishly 
any columns that seemed promis- 
ing, and made notes of addresses, 
regardless of nationality and color, 
and varied as to locality. Then I 
arranged a sequence of investiga- 
tion, prepared with a view to 
time-saving and trolley connec- 
tions. 

Somewhere in the neighborhood 
of Washington Place I made a 
brief incursion into Ireland. The 
inhabitant looked me over care- 
fully, and with doubtful approval. 
Then she asked concerning the 
number of members in my family, 
their ages, the size of my abode. 


The Finding of Adelia. 39 


its convenience to the station, and 
probable value. 

I was convinced presently that 
she had missed her calling. As a 
census-taker, an assessor, or a land- 
agent she would have been a shin- 
ing success. She may have been so 
as a domestic, but she did not im- 
press me as such. However,! made 
the best showing I could. I left out 
the halls in giving the number of 
rooms, shortened the distance to 
the station to a dead run, forgot 
the bric-a-brac when it came to the 
assessment, and did as well as pos- 
sible by the Precious Ones, includ- 
ing the Tiny Small One, of whom 
I said that she was a healthy child, 
and growing daily in grace and 
good manners. The question of 
wages was secondary. What I 
needed was help. 

It was a hopeless appeal. Again 
she looked me over, and an- 


40 


The Commuters, 


nounced that she preferred city 
life. She added that she was in 
the habit of attaching herself to 
the household of “ praists,” and 
therefore accustomed to an atmos- 
phere of quiet and seclusion, which 
I was obliged to admit was for me 
a thing of the dead past. I was 
plainly out of it on several counts. 
We parted soon and amicably, 
with expressions of mutual regret 
and regard. 

I rode ten blocks and climbed 
four flights of very gloomy, smelly 
stairs into Sweden. I had been 
hopeful of Sweden. I had heard 
that Swedish girls were good girls, 
and even when the square-built 
muscular maiden came out into the 
hall to talk to me, closing the door 
firmly behind her, I was only 
vaguely alarmed. Through the 
odorous dark I spoke to her of 
green fields. I besought her to 


The Finding of Adelia, 41 


take up a share of my burdens in 
a land where sweet spring days 
were near, and where all day long 
were birds that would carol to her 
of the far-off hills and fjords of her 
childhood. I wooed her with 
promises of several dollars per 
week and Sundays out. She lis- 
tened until I was quite empty, 
then: 

You lav in contry? ” 

“ Well, yes, it is called the coun- 
try. It is really part of the city, 
you know, with trains every few 
minutes. Nearer, in fact, than 
many points of Harlem. We — ” 
“ I tank I not go to contry.” 

Oh, but you would like it out 
there. It is beautiful in summer 
— like Sweden,” which remark 
was probably a mistake on my part. 
Had she been attached to Sweden 
she would have remained there. 
Indeed, it seems to me that a good 


42 


The Commuters, 


deal of this so-called affection for 
the fatherland is a pleasant fiction. 
I have yet to find the first wage- 
earner who has any genuine desire 
to return to his lakes and fells, his 
fjords, or his jungles, however 
much he may warble or babble of 
those beyond the sea. I wax a bit 
poetic myself, sometimes, and re- 
call certain environs of childhood 
with affection. But I have no de- 
sire to return to them, or to locate 
in a place recommended as being 
of similar topography. 

The maid of Sweden, whose 
square outline only was visible 
through the redolent dusk, re- 
peated that she did not sigh for 
green fields. 

But what’s the matter with the 
country? ” I asked. 

She reflected on the matter be- 
fore replying. 

‘‘I — I tank I get sack dcre.” 


The Finding of Adelia, 43 


“ Sick? Why, the country’s the 
place to get well in. How do you 
get sick? ” 

This required still more reflec- 
tion. She had to think up some- 
thing. Something good and hard 
that would close the interview. I 
had lost hope, of course, but I was 
not without curiosity as to the 
malady that attacked this robust 
young person when withdrawn 
from the madding crowd. 

I — I tank I have pains ! ” she 
announced at last, and there was 
a note in her accents that caused 
me to edge a bit closer to the head 
of the stairs. 

“ Ah, pains. And — eh, would 
you — would you mind telling me 
where you have these pains? I 
have some medical knowledge — 
I — ” 

I tank I have pains in my 
lags! I tank I know I have my 


44 


The Commuters. 


pains! I tank I know what I do! 
I tank I not go to contry — ! ” 

But I was half-way down the 
top flight by this time, acquiring 
speed as I descended into the mys- 
tery of blackness below. 

“ ‘ Maid of Sweden, when we part, 
Give me, please, a running start,’ ” 


I murmured as I touched bot- 
tom and escaped into the soiled 
misery of the jangling street. 

It was not far to Germany, and 
but a step across the Rhine — the 
hall, I mean — into France. But 
the German inhabitant was not 
pleased with my statistics, while 
the grisette over the way was coy, 
and shrugged her shoulders at 
mention of the country. Clearly 
the servant question was no small 
factor in the commuter’s problem. 
That these benighted creatures 


The Finding of Adelia, 45 


should prefer the wretched, soul- 
less round and wrangle of their 
present existence to the clean bed 
and outlook I offered them was not 
easy to understand. But I was in 
no mood to philosophize. I made 
my way to West Forty-third Street 
for an expedition into the Congo 
country. 

Pickaninnies with twisted bob- 
bets of hair infested the entrances 
to the kraals, and round black eyes 
shone and lured me along dark 
passages and up winding stairs. 
“ Ring Rev. Medders’ bell ” was 
the instruction on one advertise- 
ment, and I was presently ushered 
into the Medders parlor, which I 
am obliged to confess was cleaner, 
more homelike, and less redolent 
than some of my former expe- 
riences. Then the lady I had 
called to see entered, and I gasped. 
She was of the gold-spectacled 


46 The Commuters, 


chocolate type, and stylish, no 
name. I could not at once state 
my errand for admiring her 
clothes. When I did so she re- 
garded me with compassion, but 
with no sign of favor. She spoke 
with a drawl. 

‘‘ Oh, no, sah. I couldn’t go to 
th’ country, sah ! ” 

‘‘ Ah, I see. You prefer the city 
life.” 

“Yes, sah — always wuk in 
town, sah, — ’ceptin’ when I goes 
to the country to boahd, sah.” 

“Vacation, I suppose.” 

“ Yes, sah, when it’s wahm, sah. 
I goes to the seashoah then, sah.” 

“You wouldn’t — eh — care to 
board with us awhile now, I sup- 
pose? ” 

“ Oh, no, sah. Too cold, sah. 
Much too cold this time o’ yeah, 
sah.” 

I was about to tell her that there 


The Finding of Adelia, 47 


was one place where it was warm 
enough in all seasons, and that she 
might go there. She volunteered 
presently to introduce me to some 
friends below stairs, who perhaps 
would be willing to consider my 
needs. At least, they might know 
of some kindly care-ridden soul to 
whom our country home would 
prove an asylum of repose. 

There was a sound of revelry as 
we drew near the dim doorway 
below. It ceased at our knock, 
and a moment later the door 
opened to such an assortment of 
colored society as it had been never 
my privilege to enter. My expe- 
dition had reached darkest Africa 
at a step. When she of the gold 
spectacles announced my mission 
they crowded about to listen, and 
to regard curiously the stranger 
from so far a clime. Only one 
of them had any definite knowl- 


48 The Commuters, 


edge of our place on the map. 
She was a jolly, fat old soul toward 
whom my heart warmed. 

“ Oh, yas, sah. I knows dat 
place, sah; I been out once on a 
trolley — to a picnic.” 

“ Don’t you want to go to an- 
other picnic? ” I said, and not 
come back? ” 

This resulted in huge merriment 
all around, and general good feel- 
ing predominated. A voice in the 
back of the crowd piped up: 

“ How much you want to pay to 
go out in de country, sah? ” 

I named a figure which seemed 
to me reckless. It was received 
with scant enthusiasm. 

“ Oh, ’shaw, I couldn’t go foh 
dat, sah ! I gets dat right heah in 
town, sah! ” 

“ But it’s better in the country 
than it is here, and you couldn’t 
spend your money out there.” 


The Finding of Adelia. 49 


I saw instantly that this was a 
fatal mistake. There was another 
burst of merriment, and she of the 
piping voice became the butt of 
their good-humored raillery. 

“ You go out dere, honey, an’ 
you cain’t buy nary thing lessen 
you taken de train,” laughed a tall 
creature with resplendent ear- 
bobs.” 

“What you gwine do, Julia, 
when you wan’ take a li’l prom- 
nade?” asked a gentleman with 
gaily plaided tie and patent 
leathers. 

“ Julie might set on de fence an’ 
talk to Brer Rabbit, foh comp’ny,” 
suggested a bowed old Remus, 
from the corner, and I found my- 
self enjoying it as much as they 
did. 

Oh, children of the Afric sun! 
Undismayed in adversity — light- 
hearted and lavish in prosperity — 


50 


The Commuters. 


extravagant in good clothes and 
grief! I rejoice with you in your 
luxury of to-day, and in your care- 
less heed of a morrow for which 
other joys and other means are 
somehow to be provided. The 
sun, that greatest of all providers, 
has filled you with a serene faith 
in its unfailing dispensations, — an 
unwavering trust in a beneficence 
that lies behind! 

I was loath to leave these merry 
souls, and they seemed sorry to 
have me go. Had my business 
been less urgent, I might have put 
in the afternoon with them. As it 
was I bade them an affectionate 
good-by, and they followed me out 
into the hall with a friendly in- 
terest that reached an3rwhere 
within the limits of Manhattan 
Island. The stout lady of the 
trolley went a step further. 

I’d go out dar wid you, sah, 


The Finding of Adelia, 51 


ef I could leeave,” she declared, 
regretfully. “ But I have to stay 
an’ cook foh mah fam’ly, an’ cose 
mah fam’ly has to stay heah.” 

I had an impulse to say that if 
she would only come I would take 
the fam’ly,” too, but I resisted, 
and was presently in the cheerless 
street again, where night was com- 
ing down and the yellow gas be- 
ginning to flicker dismally. 

I began to have the feeling of a 
man who, penniless and hunting 
for work, is turned away on every 
hand. Who sees people hurrying 
busily to and fro, but for him no 
place in all that bustling throng. 
Who dreads to go home empty- 
handed with the word failure on 
his lip. Work was my problem, as 
well as his — somebody to do it. 
Workers there were, plenty of 
them, everywhere, but none for 
me. I was not quite penniless, but 


52 


The Commuters, 


I might as well have been, so far 
as fulfilling my mission was con- 
cerned. Indeed, it seemed that I 
was likely to become so as the 
price of success. My dilemma 
was sprouting a pair of horns. 

I began to doubt some of the 
stories I had read of people perish- 
ing for the want of work. I wished 
I might meet one or two who had 
perished to a degree that a job in 
the country would tempt them. It 
seemed to me that there was an- 
other side to this labor question. 
I regretted some of the things I 
had said on the subject, and began 
to shift my pity. I knew I would 
need it myself if I went home with 
the word failure on my lip. 

I was in East Forty-fourth 
Street by this time, climbing a 
flight that led to what proved to be 
a better part of Ireland than I had 
encountered hitherto. I was hope- 


The Finding of Adelia, 53 


less, but I had resolved to make 
one final effort, and then keep 
straight on to the dark, sluggish 
river that had already hidden so 
many world-weary mortals in its 
quiet depths. 

A bright-faced matron opened 
the door for me, and asked me into 
a small but not lavish parlor, an- 
nouncing that she of the advertise- 
ment would presently appear. I 
gave myself up to relaxation. 
Then the door opened, and there 
was a slight rustle, as of ironed 
skirts. A trim figure stood before 
me, with a hesitating, half-em- 
barrassed smile and a gentle repose 
of manner that seemed a direct in- 
heritance from some far-off ances- 
tor of Ireland’s royal line. In- 
stinctively I rose and offered her 
my seat. She remained standing. 
When I had stated my errand — 
not because I expected any result. 


54 


The Commuters. 


but because I had no other excuse 
for being there — she said, simply, 
and in a voice that was liquid 
music, that she would go. 

I did not believe it, of course. 
I knew that I must be dreaming. 
Perhaps I had already thrown 
myself into the river and this was 
one of the hallucinations of drown- 
ing. I took a long breath, coughed, 
pinched myself, and said it all 
over. She said again that she 
would go. That she liked chil- 
dren, especially tiny small ones; 
also the country, particularly at 
this season. 

Then I knew it was she who was 
dreaming, and I tried to awaken 
her to a realization of what she 
was saying. Still she insisted that 
she would go — that the place 
would suit her — that she would 
come out on the morrow, prepared 
to stay. 


The Finding of Adelia, 55 


I was willing then to take ad- 
vantage of her weakness, and sug- 
gested that she come at. once — 
that I would take her to the sta- 
tion — that I would see to getting 
her trunk there — that I would 
carry it myself, if necessary. She 
repeated softly and firmly her for- 
mer proposition. She would come, 
and she would come on the mor- 
row. I was obliged to be content 
with this, though I had a canker- 
ing dread that by morning she 
would realize what she had prom- 
ised, or that somebody would steal 
her away from me before she could 
render fulfilment. I had some 
thought of sitting on the door-step 
all night to prevent this disaster. 

Arriving home, I was almost 
afraid to confide my good fortune 
to the Little Woman. I know now 
how the man feels when he has 
really got a job at last, and cannot 


56 The Commuters, 


sleep for fear there will be some 
hitch before he can be installed. 
Bright and early I looked in once 
more on the gentle face of our 
Adelia, for such was her soft “ en- 
titlement.” I feared she had 
changed her mind. She had not 
done so, — neither had she al- 
tered her charm. When she failed 
to arrive that evening, I was in the 
depths of the penniless man whose 
job is postponed and in the bal- 
ance. 

Once more I called. She was 
full of apologies. Her trunk had 
miscarried. She would be out on 
the morrow, certainly. 

I went home with a heavy heart. 
The Precious Ones and the Little 
Woman still had food. The Tiny 
Small One was supplied with tea, 
but to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
and to-morrow — Adelia was tri- 
fling with us ! She meant to let us 


The Finding of Adelia, 57 


perish! She was cold and heart- 
less beneath a soft exterior — but, 
lo, early on the morrow, an ex- 
press wagon drove up hastily and 
unloaded a heavy trunk. A neat 
black-gowned figure tripped up to 
our door, the sun that had been 
obscured for days broke out over- 
head, and all the world grew fair 
in the arrival of our Adelial 


58 The Commuters, 


IV. 

The Beginning of All Things, 

T he day of Adelia’s arrival 
is memorable for several rea- 
sons. 

Some days before I had missed 
my train by falling over a bundle 
of ill-timed shingles. Arising in 
wrath and denunciation, I had 
found myself face to face with a 
humble-looking, apologetic man, 
sturdy of architecture and rustic 
in design. His mild manner and 
gentle sympathy dissolved my ac- 
rimony. I lingered to talk with 
him on the subject of attachments, 
one of which he was then adding 
to a stable. 

I became deeply interested in 


The Beginning of All Things, 59 


his honest counsel and tendency to 
modest estimates, — so much so 
that I had well-nigh missed my 
next train. He called the next 
evening to make figures on our job. 

We were impressed with the 
quiet, easy manner of his method. 
Some of them had insisted on 
measuring everything in sight, 
from the height of our foundation 
to the thickness of our picture 
moulding. After which they had 
required at least a week to add all 
these figures together and multiply 
them by the general area of a 
lot of things that were some- 
where else. They had been crit- 
ical, too, almost disagreeable, in 
the matter of my carefully pre- 
pared ground-plan and elevations. 
They had wanted to know if they 
were to furnish the pitchers and 
things on the mantel, and the arm- 
chair, with a shadow on the firelit 


6o 


The Commuters, 


floor. Our new man did none of 
these things. He admired my 
drawings, and he seemed to know 
our measurements by intuition. 
When I had explained to him that 
we were putting the attachment on 
the house chiefly to get the fire- 
places, and that these must be suc- 
cessful, with proper draught, he 
entered thoroughly into the spirit 
of the idea. I led him to the gar- 
ret and showed him where I de- 
sired a wide dormer-window, with 
broad seat, and diamond-paned 
hinged sash that opened to the sun- 
rise. How all the way around the 
room I wanted small uprights, 
upon which I would myself tack 
the gray deadening felt that was to 
cover the wall and the rafters over- 
head. I pointed to the opening 
in the roof, where the iron box- 
cover was to be replaced by a small 
hinged skylight; to a spot in the 


The Beginning of All Things. 6i 


floor, where there would be a reg- 
ister connecting with the furnace 
below, and to the chimney at the 
end, in which I had planned a 
pipe-hole for a Franklin stove, 
with a shelf supported by two rus- 
tic posts, one on each side, to com- 
plete the mantel effect. He under- 
stood at a glance, and suggested 
one or two things which I had 
overlooked, but which appealed to 
me instantly as being in line with 
my own thought, and desirable. 

I had been obliged to beat my 
ideas into the others, with a force 
that was not always pleasant. They 
had wanted me to have it their 
way, and they had ended by put- 
ting on a price that prohibited my 
having it at all. In our new man 
I recognized a rare soul under a 
humble exterior — a creature of 
sympathetic imagination and open 
heart. I also recognized the hand 


62 


The Commuters. 


of Providence in that bundle of 
shingles, and w^as strengthened in 
my theories concerning the larger 
meaning of life’s most trivial inci- 
dents. 

When we went below, I ex- 
pected him to say that he would 
prepare an estimate in a few days. 
He did nothing of the sort. He 
took a leaf from his simple note- 
book, and on the side not contain- 
ing the advertisement, wrote, with 
a pencil: 

I wil do all work as spesifide 
in yur plans, garet and dinin room 
for — ” The figure named was 
fully a third less than that of any 
former estimate. 

We could have fallen upon his 
neck, and we agreed hastily, lest he 
should change his mind. He 
showed no disposition to do this, 
but assured us that he would have 
the job done in a jiffy — that he 


The Beginning of All Things. 63 


would work it in between two 
larger jobs, one just finished, and 
another still to come. I inquired 
jocosely if the big job just finished 
was the attachment on the stable. 
We parted with merriment and 
good-fellowship all around. It 
was not until he was gone that we 
spelled out his signature, and be- 
came jocose again to find that by 
some curious freak fortune had al- 
lotted to him the strangely inap- 
propriate name of Braikup — W. 
Braikup. 

It was on the morning of Ade- 
lia’s arrival that he had begun 
operations. There were three men 
in the garret when she came, and 
two outside, digging a trench for 
the foundation. There were also 
two men in the upper rooms, pre- 
paring the walls for paper, for we 
had contracted our painting and 
decorating in the meantime. Still 


64 The Commuters, 


others were placing scaling-lad- 
ders on the outer walls, and stir- 
ring pots of variously colored pig- 
ments. Furthermore, it proved to 
be the first warm, sunny day of 
April, — a day we could not think 
of wasting, — and after the hastiest 
of introductions the Tiny Small 
One was given over to the gentle 
Adelia, while with rake and 
shovel and magic buff packets, and 
accompanied by the Precious Ones 
similarly laden, the Little Woman 
and I descended joyously the steps 
that led to the Garden of Our 
Dreams. 

It was indeed a memorable day. 
Never have we had so much going 
on at once. What Adelia’s first 
impression of us was it would be 
difficult to say. I had referred to 
our home as being rather quiet. 
Now, with saws and hammers in 
the garret, laughter and converse 


The Beginning of All Things, 65 


in the bedrooms, — frequently car- 
ried on through the open win- 
dows with those on the ladders 
without, — with the sound of pick 
and shovel below, and the whole 
mingled with the occasional pro- 
test of the Tiny Small One, who 
found fault with certain features 
of the new arrangement, there 
was hardly the atmosphere of still- 
ness and peace which I may have 
led her to expect. But the Lit- 
tle Woman and I rejoiced. We 
had come through a long, dreary 
winter, brightened only by our 
General Happiness, and our plans. 
Now the glad and wakening spring 
was upon us, and with it the begin- 
ning of a fulfilment that would 
presently be complete. Ten days 
was the time limit set by each of 
our various contractors, though we 
agreed privately that we would be 
satisfied if everything could be 


66 


The Commuters, 


done in two weeks, when, with our 
new clean house and our verdant 
and radiant garden, our Happiness 
would become a thing to incite the 
envy of angels. 

I turned up a section of the 
moist earth, and we dug, and 
delved, and planted according to 
directions, while the fresh soil 
grew warm and fragrant under the 
sun’s beneficent rays and fairly in- 
toxicated us with the fumes and 
vapors of spring. Oh, what is so 
rare as the first blessed day of 
April gardening! To go down 
into the little plot that so long has 
lain bleak and desolate and har- 
dened by winter frosts — to find it 
mellow, warm, and ready for the 
germs of early planting. To dig 
and stir and furrow, in the comfort 
of the sun’s life-giving elixir, 
which presently must waken the 
first tender shoot and leaflet of 


The Beginning of All Things. 67 


bloom and salad and relish into 
tiny rows of gratifying beginning 
that shall wax soon to fair and 
succulent maturity! 

I recall now that physically I 
was none too well on that glorious 
day. I had dined with some 
friends on the evening before, and 
was regretting certain of the fes- 
tivities, and the lateness of ad- 
journment, which had necessitated 
my return by the slow and cir- 
cuitous trolley. Ordinarily I 
should not have engaged in active 
pursuits, feeling as I did, but on 
this day of days I found restorative 
in the balm of sunlight, and in toil 
the anodyne of remorse. 

I brought out a rocking-chair, 
from which I observed and crit- 
icized the Little Woman’s methods 
of planting, and from which, in 
turn, she instructed me as to the 
best processes of turning and stir- 


68 


The Commuters, 


ring the soil. We were not wholly 
confined to the instructions on the 
packets. She had ideas and tra- 
ditions of her own, while I had 
preserved memories from a rural 
childhood when gardening had 
been a Saturday punishment so bit- 
ter that the memory of its details 
could never be entirely effaced. 
We discussed several things, and 
endeavored to combine our wis- 
dom with that of the buff packets. 

It was not always easy to do. 
The packets said nothing as to the 
light and dark of the moon, which 
we both remembered as being im- 
portant, though we disagreed in 
our moon science as to whether 
underground things, like radishes, 
should be planted in the dark of 
the moon, and salads, etc., in the 
light period, or vice versa. We 
finally discovered that we did not 
know whether the present period 


The Beginning of All Things, 69 


was dark or light, also that we did 
not know which was which. We 
decided that we were probably be- 
twixt and between, and would take 
chances. 

We also disagreed as to the 
depth which certain seeds should 
be planted, and were grieved to 
find that the packets did not always 
instruct us on this vital point. The 
Little Woman wanted to plant 
deep and well, while I held for 
surface sowing, with a light top 
dressing. When the argument be- 
came strenuous, we relieved our- 
selves by denouncing the Precious 
Ones for getting in our way. Not 
but what they deserved it. There 
was any amount of room as yet, 
but it seemed to give them special 
comfort to dig and rake and dis- 
cuss their own problems in each 
particular spot preempted by their 
elders. When we finally could 


70 


The Commuters, 


persuade them to dig apart, they 
made their gardens in unusual 
places, and with no regard as to 
form, or the points of the compass. 
It was of small moment, however, 
if they would only keep out of our 
chosen territory, and so let us dig 
and plant and discuss our happi- 
ness in peace. 

It would be lovely, we said, to 
have this little garden of our own 
— to go down into it in the early 
morning and gather things fresh 
and green, with the dew on them. 
And with how little real effort 
each day such a spot could be 
cared for and made to yield abun- 
dantly! It was too bad that every 
one with a bit of ground like this 
did not improve it, instead of let- 
ting it go to waste. 

The bucolic spirit waxed strong 
as we agreed to these things. We 
united in a resolve to spend no 


The Beginning of All Things. 71 


money for garden stuff during the 
season, and our prospective returns 
of salads and green things grew as 
we talked, until we even had some 
notion of supplying our grocer 
with our surplus in exchange for 
a few staple articles that our gar- 
den might not produce. Dear 
heart! It is indeed sweet to have 
a spot where all is green and 
fresh and dewy, but sweeter 
still the memory of days like 
these in the heart’s unfading gar- 
dens! 

We had an audience presently, 
for our neighbors had awakened 
to the fact that a general upheaval 
was taking place in and about our 
domicile. They leaned over the 
fence to comment on my rocking- 
chair method of gardening, and to 
offer valuable counsel and en- 
couragement. God bless our 
neighbors! They have been good 


72 


The Commuters. 


to us, and they have loaned us their 
garden tools in time of need. 

We sowed beds of lettuce, chic- 
ory, parsley, radishes, onions, and 
peas that first day, and some beet 
and spinach seed about the young 
currant bushes. The beet and spin- 
ach idea was mine, and for the 
purpose of economizing space. I 
said we could gather them in their 
youth to mingle with the dande- 
lions, which grew plentifully with- 
out planting. We agreed that we 
had not thus far taken advantage 
of a good deal that nature had 
done for us in the way of dande- 
lions and the like, and both con- 
fessed a weakness for old-fash- 
ioned greens. Most of the seeds 
planted on this first day were of 
the Little Woman’s Iowa brand, 
in which her faith was still strong. 
Also I may say here that it was not 
unjustified. The varieties result- 


The Beginning of All Things. 73 


ing were not always of the choicest, 
but they did grow, whereas certain 
of my own selections proved rather 
disappointing in this particular. 
However, I am anticipating. 

We did not follow instructions 
in the matter of rows. We agreed 
that we could not afford fifteen 
inches for a row of lettuce, even 
though the packet said the heads 
“ frequently measured twenty 
inches across.” Three such heads 
would quite fill the space we had 
allotted for this particular salad. 
We said we would have smaller 
heads and more of them, and that 
we would cut our salad according 
to our conditions. We compro- 
mised at last by sowing it broad- 
cast, with the idea of gradually 
thinning as it matured — this being 
one of the Little Woman’s inspira- 
tions. In the matter of radishes 
we planted two kinds, — the long 


74 


The Commuters, 


and the round, — the former being 
the Iowa brand. We halved the 
recipe on these, planting six inches 
apart instead of twelve, for we said 
we didn’t care for radishes more 
than three inches in diameter, any- 
way, and would probably pull 
most of them even before they got 
to be that size. In fact, we pursued 
this general plan throughout. We 
were not going regularly into mar- 
ket-gardening, and would be con- 
tent with smaller vegetables, and 
more of them. Two feet for a row 
of peas was absurd in a garden 
thirty-five feet square. Two rows 
in two feet seemed extravagant 
enough, but we grudgingly yielded 
this much, and finally levelled and 
raked and patted down our beds, 
— planted a shingle at each, with 
the name of contents and date of 
planting, — and stood off to ad- 
mire our work. 


The Beginning of All Things, 75 


“ Who have you got buried 
there? ” called our neighbor from 
across the fence. 

Then we saw what we had not 
noticed before, that our little gar- 
den beds, being pretty much of a 
size, and rather narrow and trim 
and neat, with the inscribed shin- 
gle at each one, did look a good 
deal like graves. We laughed, 
however, and said they were not 
graves, but beds, for our hopes to 
rest in, overnight. Then the Little 
Woman went in to comfort the 
Tiny Small One, who had done 
worthily, on the whole, while I re- 
mained to plant four tiny beds of 
herbs next the fence. We had sage 
from the year before, and, begin- 
ning there, I added thyme, mar- 
joram, savory, and basil, in rota- 
tion, so that we might say, “ Sage, 
it’s thyme Marjoram was savory 


76 The Commuters, 


to Basil,” and so remember with- 
out the need of headboards. 

Perhaps the Little Woman was 
not so cheerful when I went in. 
The rooms up-stairs were littered 
with lime and ladders and pails 
of smelly stuff, while workmen 
were tramping about with an utter 
disregard of neatness, or family 
convenience and privacy. Adelia 
and the Tiny Small One had worn 
and discontented looks. The Pre- 
cious Ones, as usual, were clamor- 
ing for food. The masons and 
painters below had been getting 
water from the kitchen. They had 
tramped mortar all about the floor, 
and slopped water into it wherever 
possible. Whatever had been 
made in the way of progress was 
as yet almost imperceptible to our 
unpractised eyes. 

I said that of course we must 
expect these things, and that prob- 


The Beginning of All Things. 77 


ably they had done a good deal 
more than we could see. Also 
that we must get along as cheer- 
fully as we could while these peo- 
ple were with us, and be thankful 
that it was to be only two weeks 
instead of four, as had been the 
case with some neighbors, who had 
been victimized by irresponsible 
workmen. 

We cheered up a bit in these re- 
flections, though, to tell the truth, 
it was not easy to see where we 
were going to sleep, and that night, 
when the moon rose over our in- 
cipient garden, which we looked 
down upon from an upper win- 
dow, the trim, narrow little beds, 
with the shingle planted at the 
head of each, did look uncom- 
monly like graves. 


yS The Commuters, 


V. 

Pussum. 

B ut there is one important 
member of our household 
whom I have overlooked far 
too long. I refer to T. Pussum, 
our benign and reliable cat. 

He came to us in his early life, 
during the first summer of our sub- 
urban residence. He was not an 
ostentatious cat, but a bedrabbled 
and bleary-eyed shred of gray that 
sat guarding our milk-bottles one 
morning when I opened the back 
door. Indeed, I have seldom seen 
a more forlorn specimen than was 
our stately Pussum at this the mo- 
ment of our introduction. 

Perhaps he was a prodigal that 


Pussum. 


79 


had travelled far, wasting his sub- 
stance in riotous living. At least, 
he was very footsore, and had no 
substance left that seemed of any 
value to respectable people. A 
vagabond and a tramp, depending 
on charity and odd jobs to help 
him on his way, he was doubtless 
guarding our milk supply with the 
hope of some slight reward. We 
didn’t need his protection, but 
from the depths of my heart and 
one of the bottles a modest salvage 
was granted. I put some milk in 
a pan and he drank it greedily, 
without thanks. I did not invite 
him in. We had no cat as yet, but 
we had one planned, and it was 
not of this design. I hoped that 
when filled he would fare onward 
to lay protection and tribute on 
other milk-bottles than ours. 

I forgot him presently, and 
was surprised when, somewhat 


8o 


The Commuters, 


later, I heard the LittleWoman an- 
nounce that there was a kitten 
clinging to the screen door and 
crying to come in. I went out to 
investigate, and found him half- 
way up the screen. Not being 
able to get through the wire, he 
had climbed it. 

“ It is unnecessary to come in,” 
I said. You can thank me from 
where you stand, or sit, or what- 
ever you call it. I appreciate your 
desire, now that the pangs of hun- 
ger are allayed, to make due ac- 
knowledgment, but time is pre- 
cious, and you should be on your 
way. There are other milk-bottles 
to be saved. The future is full of 
them. Besides, it is pleasanter with- 
out. We are barely settled. We 
could not entertain you properly, 
even if we would. Go your way. 
Get off of our screen door, and 
hence! Rapidly!” 


Pussum, 


8i 


He refused to hence. With food 
he had acquired vigor, and a voice 
strong for his size. 

Perhaps,” I said, he wishes 
more food.” 

I pushed open the screen and 
begged him to descend. This was 
impossible — he had not planned 
for retreat. His tendency was to 
climb higher. 

I was not eager to touch him, but 
there seemed no alternative. I de- 
tached him from the wire and 
placed him before the pan. Again 
he ate. Again, filled with the milk 
of human kindness, he climbed up 
to vociferate his thanks and his in- 
tention of abiding with us always. 

I tried to shake him off — it was 
no use. I unhooked him re- 
peatedly, and placed him in re- 
mote corners of the property. He 
could beat me back to the screen 
door, even allowing me as much 


82 


The Commuters. 


as ten yards start. We repeated 
this race till finally I beat him. 
He was fully five steps behind 
when I got my hand on the knob, 
but he was coming, with head- 
way. 

I was rather warm now, and 
slightly annoyed by his overween- 
ing desire to become our guest. 
With my hand still on the knob I 
awaited him grimly. I did not 
kick him. I would scorn to kick 
a cat — especially, such a cat. I 
simply lifted him with my foot and 
planted him in our experiment 
garden. He described an arc, and 
disappeared among the tomato- 
vines. Flinging wide the door, I 
rushed in, unwilling to investigate 
the result of my violence. A sound 
from behind caused me to start 
and turn. He was half-way up the 
screen and going higher. 

I opened the portal gently. 


Pussum. 


83 


“ Come in, little stranger,” I 
said. 

And thus it was the prodigal be- 
came a part of our household. 

As the days passed the stranger 
grew strong and beautiful. Not 
being pure Maltese, I named him 
at first Maltine, but this title some- 
how seemed frivolous, and savored 
of advertising; whereas Pus- 
sum ” came trippingly from the 
tongue, and expressed more affec- 
tionately the deep regard and ad- 
miration which he presently awak- 
ened in us all. Whatever may 
have been his past, it was left be-^ 
hind with his bleary eyes and his 
emaciated tail. Both were fine and 
expressive within the month, and 
daily he grew in grace and noble 
self-respect. None knew him but 
to love him, and the occasional 
mouse, which I caught for him in 
a trap, was a slight token awarded 


84 The Commuters. 


in appreciation of his sterling 
qualities and unfailing appetite. 

I have never seen a cat display 
more eagerness for mice. For as 
much as half a day, sometimes, he 
would watch the empty trap, 
doubtless recalling joys already 
tasted, and those still to come. For 
me to begin setting it was the sig- 
nal for violent enthusiasm on the 
part of our faithful mouser, and at 
morning he invariably rushed to 
the spot where the trap was known 
to do its most efficient work. There 
is even a rumor among the Pre- 
cious Ones that our Pussum once 
captured a mouse on his own ac- 
count. But the testimony in the 
case is confusing and contradic- 
tory. I am forced to believe 
the reports of this mouse’s death 
have been grossly exaggerated.” 
However this may be, the advent 
of Pussum has been much to us all. 


Pussum. 


85 


and if we knew his birthday we 
would add it to our anniversa- 
ries. 

Pussum is reliable in many ways. 
Even from the beginning he was 
inclined to be sober and dignified, 
and did not destroy frail objects 
in the wild gambols of kittenhood. 
I have wondered sometimes what 
his earliest days were like — those 
weeks that must have passed before 
that memorable morning when I 
found him protecting our milk 
supply. Perhaps he really never 
had known childhood’s happy 
hour, but only a brief period of 
bitterness which he was anxious to 
forget. It is true, he would allow 
the Precious Ones to wheel him 
about in their little carriages, and 
seemed to take comfort in this ap- 
parent frivolity, of which he is still 
fond. It is his only diversion. He 
was old and reflective, even in his 


86 


The Commuters, 


youth, and the ways of other cats 
are not his ways. 

Most young cats, and many old 
ones, are common thieves — ready 
the moment your back is turned to 
leap on the dinner-table and grab 
something. Pussum is distinctly 
uncommon in these matters. He 
would scorn to make a flying ex- 
hibition of himself, like that, or to 
conceal his designs. He even may 
be left in the dining-room alone, 
with safety. It is only when we 
are all seated and general feasting 
is in progress that, with the aid of 
a convenient chair, he will calmly 
climb up and leisurely select such 
portions of the food as please him. 
If restrained at these times, he re- 
gards us with reproach, and con- 
tinues his selection. If repulsed, 
he retires with dignity, and returns 
presently with renewed determina- 
tion. After all, he is the same kit- 


Pussum, 


87 


ten who once climbed the screen 
door, and rallied to victory from 
the tomato-vines. He has only im- 
proved in his manners. When he 
wishes to come in now he does not 
climb the screen. Neither does he 
leap through the door at the first 
opportunity, or push his head and 
one foot in, like a book agent. He 
sits on the step until he is invited, 
and he will sit there all day if 
necessary. But though a hero of 
patience and perseverance. Pus- 
sum is not distinguished as a war- 
rior. He has faith in discretion, 
and is willing to rely on his speed 
rather than upon his skill and 
prowess in conflict. Not that he 
is a coward, at least, not cravenly 
so. When once faced in the right 
direction, I have seen him defy 
successfully a random dog, or the 
ten-pound Tom Tiger across the 
way. His difficulty seems to be 


88 


The Commuters. 


in getting into the attitude and 
direction of war. Perhaps his ob- 
ject in running is to get far enough 
ahead to enable him to turn 
around. He does fight, too, for he 
sometimes bears the earmarks of 
battle. I suppose they catch him 
now and then. On the morning 
after Thanksgiving he had a lump 
on his forehead. Still more re- 
cently he returned after a night’s 
absence in a mixed condition of 
mud and water and humiliation. 
He lamented dismally while I had 
him in the tub, probably explain- 
ing how the cyclone had overtaken 
him before he could make harbor^ 
and giving other valuable testi- 
mony. 

One night I heard a violent al- 
tercation just outside my window, 
and when no longer able to re- 
strain my curiosity I arose and 
looked into the moonlight. A half- 


Pussum, 


89 


grown tree stands by our sidewalk. 
It was late autumn, and the leaves 
had disappeared. They had been 
replaced with something larger. I 
did not at first realize what were 
the black bunches that decorated 
the several limbs and forks of the 
little tree. Then one of the bunches 
moved. Then all of them howled. 
Then I observed that it was a tree 
of cats. On the tip-topmost bough 
there swung and balanced a feline 
form that evidently had been 
driven to a last retreat. 

I descended to the kitchen and 
returned with coal. Leaning out, 
I flung a hurtling handful that 
resulted in a sudden and wild ex- 
plosion of cats, leaving a single 
form still balancing on the top- 
most bough. Something about its 
outline caused me to discontinue 
the anthracite treatment. Then, 
the coast being quite clear, there 


90 


The Commuters, 


was a cautious descent, a stealthy 
slipping along the path below, and 
into the white moonlight beneath 
my window there stepped with sol- 
emn tread our own great gray 
reliable Pussum. 


Paste-pot and Step-ladder, 91 


VI. 

Paste-pot and Step-ladder, 

H owever little our work- 
men may have accomplished 
the first day, I am sure now 
that it was more than they ever 
accomplished on any day succeed- 
ing. For one thing, a spell of bad 
weather came on and interfered 
with those outside. The inside 
men did not desert us. They came 
and went, leaving open doors, 
mud, and general distress behind. 
They seemed to be busy enough, 
but we confided to each other that 
if they would talk less they would 
perhaps get along faster. 

They were filling the cracks in 
the walls, and usually worked in 


92 


The Commuters, 


separate rooms. They kept the 
door open between, and through 
it the tide of careless converse 
ebbed and flowed, echoing through 
the hollow spaces and resounding 
against bare, reverberant walls, be- 
yond which the Tiny Small One 
was trying to find rest. When they 
had been with us a week they had 
done nothing that I was sure of 
except to make weird maps of our 
walls and fill my hair with cal- 
cimine. 

They did something the next 
day — they filled the house with a 
smell of fish. It was not of fresh 
fish, — I don’t mind that so much, 
— but of a wayworn fish that has 
been sojourning in some secluded 
spot on shore during a period of 
warm weather. I declared that it 
was a nuisance, and that I would 
have it abated. They assured us 
that it was glue, and healthy. 


Paste-pot and Step-ladder, 93 


Then I said that of course it might 
not be a nuisance, but that it smelt 
exactly like one, and I wished they 
would take it away. They cooked 
the stuff in the kitchen, on Adelia’s 
stove. One of them, who was her 
countryman, had blarneyed himself 
into her good graces. For the lat- 
ter I am still grateful, otherwise 
Adelia would not have been spared 
to us through all the trying days. 

They became still more trying 
as they smirched and splattered 
their way along. It was unsafe to 
open a door, while a trip up-stairs 
was attended with uncertainty and 
exasperation. Step-ladders arose 
everywhere, and with the sudden- 
ness of mushrooms. Pots of messy 
and disgusting liquids were left in 
the capricious balance of tottering 
instability. We never opened any- 
thing, at last, even conversation, 
without previous announcement; 


94 


The Commuters, 


after which it was usually impos- 
sible. When every other room in 
the house was upset we huddled in 
the playroom, amid a disorder of 
broken toys and disreputable dolls, 
and when night came crawled 
through step-ladders and a wilder- 
ness of misplaced and mistreated 
furniture, to creep at last into tar- 
paulined and spattered beds, to 
uneasy rest. 

Of course we had covered and 
rolled and put away as much as 
possible, but we had prepared for 
no such protracted siege as was now 
upon us. There were a good many 
things that we used in our daily 
life, and there were still others that 
ere long we were obliged to fish 
up from unfathomed and unre- 
corded depths. Other things 
usually came with them, and in the 
stress of the moment could not be 
replaced with care. The result 


Paste-pot and Step-ladder, 95 


was interesting to the Precious 
Ones, who seemed to find joy in 
the general squalor of the new dis- 
order of things. 

It is not easy to be either system- 
atic or good-natured when work- 
men are ordering you from one 
room to another, and hustling your 
things in a helter-skelter fashion 
that makes you grab for articles 
of virtu and needed apparel. 
Now and then we became excited, 
though fortunately at different 
times. There were moments when 
the Little Woman found it neces- 
sary to calm me, and once, when 
the men were handling our chat- 
tels with unusual vehemence, and 
she seemed a bit nervous, I turned 
to a soothing text and comforted 
her with that sweet line, “ I will 
go softly — softly all my days.” I 
even wrote it on a slip of paper 
and tacked it up, where she could 


g6 The Commuters, 


be reminded of it in moments of 
stress and weakness. It didn’t stay 
long, of course. Nothing stayed 
where we put it now. 

The situation began to tell on 
both of us; also upon Adelia. We 
had made some effort to maintain 
respectability, at first, and to pre- 
serve a certain dignity in her pres- 
ence. Now, demoralization seemed 
inevitable. When I found a bunch 
of summer neckties in the kitchen 
and a charlotte russe in the parlor, 
I knew that we were degenerating, 
and that we were dragging Adelia 
down. 

At the expiration of the ten al- 
lotted days there was not yet a strip 
of paper on the walls. They had 
made some effort at tinting the 
ceilings, according to contract, but 
had found our plaster of a nature 
that would not affiliate with calci- 
mine, and the contractor had 


Paste-pot and Step-ladder, gy 


agreed to paper with plain tinted 
ingrain instead. I am glad now 
that this was done, for the paper is 
by far to be preferred, only I wish 
he hadn’t made it an excuse for 
taking our men away and putting 
them on another job while, as he 
said, he was waiting for our ‘‘ceil- 
ings to come.” We didn’t see why 
he needed to do this. The “ walls ” 
were still within easy reach, and, 
bad as the situation had been, it 
seemed worse when the dilatory 
and loquacious workmen were 
gone, and we were left alone with 
our desolation, the end whereof 
was becoming each day more un- 
certainly remote. 

Our paper man appeared one 
morning on a bicycle, carrying 
two rolls, one under each arm. 
But, alackaday! That for the 
side-wall, instead of being the 
thick silk-fibre cartridge we had 


98 The Commuters, 


selected, — olive-hued, with a hint 
of gold in it, — now proved to be 
a flimsy, toneless stuff, without 
glow or soul, while the “ ceil- 
ings,” waited for so long, were a 
disturbing and disastrous yellow. 
We became firm then, and it was 
time. We said no — we wouldn’t 
have it! We’d stop all proceed- 
ings first, and with bare walls and 
broken hearts go down to the ruin 
we had set out upon. We would 
stay unpapered through all eter- 
nity before we would put that yel- 
low blight upon our coming days. 
When he realized how we felt, he 
took it away, sorrowfully, and la- 
menting our taste. Other days of 
woe and waiting passed. Why 
dwell upon them? The right 
paper came at last, both for ceiling 
and side-walls; the right burlap 
dado for the halls and dining- 
room. Piece by piece, strip by 


Paste-pot and Step-ladder. 99 


strip, it went on. I did not hurry 
them now. I even abetted them, 
when they would all knock off for 
a day to go fishing, and generously 
take me along. On the whole, our 
man of decoration and his pleasant 
assistants were so much more faith- 
ful than our carpenters, our 
masons, our plasterers, our iron- 
workers, and all the rest of our 
motley and mendacious aggrega- 
tion, that I remember them with- 
out bitterness, and, looking now at 
our restful green walls and recall- 
ing so many slighter joys that have 
been so much harder to obtain, I 
am truly grateful. 

The painters being a part of this 
combination, my thanks extend to 
them likewise. When the days 
were sunny, they whistled and 
talked and tramped down our 
rose-bushes and such other vegeta- 
tion as grew near the house. Then 


ILoiO. 


lOO 


The Commuters, 


they would apologize, and say, 
“ Oh, they’ll grow all right — you 
can’t kill ’em,” though we did not 
see why they should keep on trying 
to do so, or for what reason they 
should wish to paint a good deal of 
our shrubbery, when this was not 
in the contract, and was done at 
their own expense for time and 
material. 

Yet they were good fellows, on 
the whole, and taught me how to 
catch weak-fish. I no longer 
cherish any ill-will because of the 
decorated honeysuckle, or even in 
memory of the pot of red paint I 
met one night on the cellar stairs. 
I should have preferred to meet 
it coming up, though I suppose re- 
sults would have been about the 
same. The honeysuckle is green 
again, my bruises are healed, and 
the trousers have been exchanged 
with a pedler for an agate stew- 


Paste-pot and Step-ladder, loi 


pan. Peace be with them, — the 
painters, I mean, — they got the 
house the right color, and they did 
not drop ladders on the Precious 
Ones, though many times they 
might have done so and been exon- 
erated in a court of law. 


102 


The Commuters, 


VII. 

W, Braikup and Barney, 

I HAVE not forgotten our 
builder, W. Braikup. I shall 
never forget him. If I appear 
to have neglected him through the 
last few pages, it was only that I 
might give more careful attention 
to our decorations, and get the 
house thoroughly upset within be- 
fore taking up the real business of 
disaster that presently laid its 
blight upon us. 

Indeed, it was our builder who 
appeared to have forgotten us. 
Bad weather set in, as I have said, 
but he did not return with the sun. 
For days we picked our way about 


W, Braikup and Barney. 103 


a half-finished foundation, and 
swept lime from the back entry. 
Occasionally a workman would 
saunter in, look about, whistle a 
bar or two of some familiar air, 
and disappear. One day a pile of 
lumber was unloaded on the vacant 
lot adjoining, and our spirits rose. 
But the next day they came and 
carried most of it away again, so 
it was probably not intentional. 
Then two big locust posts, covered 
with some kind of vine, were one 
morning dragged into our lawn, 
and these I recognized as being 
the supports for my garret mantel. 
Again enthusiastic, I went out in 
the rain to shape artistically the 
clinging tendrils. They proved to 
be poison ivy, and two days later 
I was in a desperate state. Then it 
stormed again, and with the dis- 
orders that reigned within, the 
gloom of hope deferred gathered 


104 Commuters. 


over our rain-washed garden and 
hung wretchedly about our muddy 
door-steps. 

When W. Braikup did appear 
one morning, he was a creature of 
remorse and good intentions. He 
did not appear brazenly, and try 
to put the blame on us, as is cus- 
tomary in such cases. He even did 
not shift the burden wholly upon 
the weather, as he might have done 
with some show of reason. He 
simply took off his hat deferen- 
tially and let the rain fall on his 
badly thatched, gambrel-shaped 
dome, while he craved our mercy 
and declared he was unfit to look 
us in the eye. He was through 
with his big job now, he said, and 
our work would move in a manner 
that would fairly take our breath 
away. I may say here that this 
was true. It took not only our 
breath, but our vocabulary, to keep 


W. Braikup and Barney, 105 


up with W. Braikup and his 
minions of mechanical machina- 
tions. 

Not that I would be unduly 
harsh. In fact, I find that some- 
where within me is a sympathetic 
corner, dedicated to the memory of 
W. Braikup. I believe that he was 
the victim of circumstance and un- 
faithful hirelings. I believe that 
no man of any imagination can 
combat for any length of time 
with the irresponsible, incompe- 
tent, and abandoned workmen to 
be had in and about New York 
City, without losing his health, or 
his moral force. W. Braikup re- 
tained his health ; and when I re- 
member the satisfactory manner 
with which he carried out my 
garret ideas, and how work really 
did move when he was personally 
in charge, I find that my corner of 
sympathy is much larger and a 


I o6 The Commuters, 


good deal warmer than W. 
Braikup probably thinks, if, in- 
deed, he ever thinks of me, now, 
at all. 

Our hopes rose to the highest 
pitch. Saws and hammers were 
echoing once more, and lumber 
was being unloaded on the vacant 
lot. W. Braikup was personally 
in charge, and things moved, as he 
had promised. The garret was 
well-nigh complete in a few brief 
days, and I ordered the deadening 
felt, with which to cover the raft- 
ers and side-walls; also the Frank- 
lin stove, though, as we were 
verging upon warm weather, this 
would seem to have been an un- 
necessary outlay. Still, we were 
going to get things while we had 
the mood and money. We came 
up into the cleanly swept loft, 
which began to show its artistic 
possibilities, and, looking out the 


W. Braikup and Barney. 107 


new side window to the east, were 
glad to find a place apart from the 
paste-pot and step-ladder below 
stairs. We tried to be content and 
charitable, — to take things as they 
came, and be happy. 

But now came another period 
of neglect and echoless silence. 
Another two weeks when workmen 
slouched in whistling, replied in- 
differently and even curtly to our 
questions, then, still whistling, 
sauntered away. Sometimes they 
gathered up tools which they had 
left in the cellar. We were get- 
ting desperate again, when two of 
them appeared together and set a 
row of studding on our new foun- 
dation, the first real progress in 
the way of an elevation. Our 
neighbors had displayed a friendly 
interest in our progress, and I was 
glad we could make a showing at 
last. But on the next day W. 


lo8 The Commuters. 


Braikup himself appeared, and, 
after what seemed to me very mild 
reproof, administered to the mis- 
creants of the day before, took 
down all the studding and reset it 
to accord more with the general 
plan and certain acknowledged 
principles of building. Then he 
set more studding and joists, and 
then came the mason again. 

I had met this person only cas- 
ually, during the construction of 
our foundation, but he was now to 
become so important a factor in 
my distempered days and dis- 
turbed nights, that I feel niggardly 
in not allowing him a chapter all 
to himself. I will do the best I 
can in the allotted space. 

His name was Barney, a coun- 
tryman of Adelia’s, though even 
Adelia found little to defend in 
him. I am averse to epithet, but 
Barney was as iniquitous a lubber, 


W, Braikup and Barney, 109 


as malicious a lime-plastered liar 
as ever left a trail of mortar and 
mourning in his path. My vocab- 
ulary seems weak when I remem- 
ber Barney. The murder instinct 
does go mouthing adjectives and 
fashioning phraseology; and I 
find, even at this late day, that the 
old savagery, dormant within us 
all, with its old cry for blood, rises 
powerfully within me when I re- 
call that sullen demon of blocked 
chimneys and defective flues. 
What I most desire to hear is that 
Barney has fallen from one of his 
chimneys, — a tall chimney, with 
no scaffolding to impede his earth- 
ward progress. I do not want him 
to kill himself. He would be get- 
ting off too easy, — much too easy, 
— unless, indeed, he could fait 
head first, inside, and, getting 
firmly stuck in some criminally 
cramped portion of the flue, could 


I lO 


The Commuters, 


perish by lingering inches of well 
earned torture and remorse. On 
the whole, I think I should prefer 
that he would fall outside and 
break something — something im- 
portant, and that could not be re- 
paired. Perhaps the destruction 
of Barney’s pipe would satisfy my 
thirst for revenge, provided it 
could not be mended or replaced. 
I do not often feel so violently 
about any one, but in my memory 
of Barney I find no corner of ex- 
tenuation — no room for charity. 
I shall destroy Barney or his pipe, 
if either ever crosses my path 
again. 

When we had got the foundation 
of our chimney up level with the 
lower joists, I brought out my 
plan, and showed it to him care- 
fully. He regarded it with slight 
interest, and without comment. I 
saw presently that he did not un- 


W, Braikup and Barney. 1 1 1 


derstand my idea at all, and I 
called his attention to misplaced 
bricks. He showed no disposition 
to change them, and, when I be- 
came insistent, only volunteered to 
explain my plan to me from his 
point of view, which was certainly 
a new one, though not in accord- 
ance with my wishes. I said that 
I was satisfied with my original 
intention, and gently but firmly 
insisted that he move his bricks 
about to conform with my ideas. 
He did so in grim silence, and then 
displaced a lot more, in spite of 
my continuous murmur of protest 
and the constant display of my 
really beautiful plan. 

I have wondered since why Bar- 
ney did these things — why he 
could not have made some small 
efifort to please me, so saving 
himself the necessity of a devilish 
revenge later on, and me this pub- 


II2 


The Commuters, 


lie exposure of his turpitude. 
When he had reached the first cross 
layer of the fireplace, and I saw 
it sagging down on the steel sup- 
porting-bar, with no hope of its 
ever coming back to place again, 
I could stand it no longer, and 
went hastily in search of W. 
Braikup. 

I found him crawling over the 
roof of a house he was building, 
— the new big job, I suppose, — 
and all the way back I denounced 
Barney in lurid terms. I repeated 
that I was building the attachment 
mainly to get the chimney, and 
that I wanted it right. I declared 
that Barney was a dumb-head and 
a botch, only fit to lay rough stone 
under a foreman’s eye. I have 
taken these things back now. Bar- 
ney was simply a villain, wholly 
unfit to lay anything except blight 
on the lives of innocent people. 


W, Braikup and Barney. 1 1 3 


When Braikup arrived he 
pulled Barney’s work down, and, 
taking the trowel, laid the brick 
himself, in accordance with my 
ideas. As I have said, W. Braikup 
had imagination, and understood 
my plans. It was a triumph for 
me, and I got my fireplace to look 
somewhat as I had expected it 
would. Barney evinced little emo- 
tion — sullenly biding his time. 

Above the mantel the flue was 
straight building until it reached 
the upper floor, where it made a 
bend around the second opening. 
I did not dream of absolute treach- 
ery on Barney’s part, and left him 
to himself until he got above stairs. 
Here he showed an inclination to 
build the plain fireplace the only 
way that a plain fireplace can be 
built, and I continued to let him 
alone in the feeling that one may 
well be generous to the defeated. 


The Commuters, 


I14 


I did notice, once when I looked 
in, that there seemed to be a good 
deal of mortar in the lower turn, 
and mentioned the fact, adding 
that Braikup had guaranteed the 
chimney to draw, and that it didn’t 
seem to me that so many lumps 
of mortar inside could be a good 
thing for the draught. He said 
that it would come out when the 
chimney was done — that they 
would hammer it out with an iron 
ball attached to a string. I ad- 
mitted that this might be possible, 
but it seemed to me labor which 
might be avoided. 

However, the chimney went on 
until it reached the top, reaching 
it several feet sooner than I could 
have wished, or than I believed 
would make it a successful conduit 
of smoke. I declared my convic- 
tion that a chimney ought to be 
able to see over the highest point 


W, Braikup and Barney, 1 1 5 


of a roof, to enable it to get a good 
breath of air from every direction, 
but as W. Braikup, in whose coun- 
sel I still had faith, assured me that 
it was of sufficient distance from 
the highest point to make this im- 
material, and that the higher it 
was the easier it would blow over, 
I temporarily subsided on this 
point. I called his attention to cer- 
tain bulgy or swollen appearances 
on the lower flat part, outside. He 
admitted that there did seem to be 
a certain unevenness there, but 
thought it wouldn’t be noticed 
when the chimney was painted, 
which, on the whole, seemed more 
reasonable than Barney’s assertion 
that it would all dry down even, 
or than the Little Woman’s sug- 
gestion that perhaps these outward 
curvatures were to operate against 
the draught, and to keep the whole 


Il6 The Commuters. 


lower part of the chimney from 
being drawn up the flue. 

We had built no fire in the chim- 
ney as yet, — the absence of hearth 
and the presence of shavings mak- 
ing the experiment hazardous, 
though I had more than once held 
bunches of lighted paper to the 
openings, with results that awak- 
ened but feeble enthusiasm as to 
the draught, — notwithstanding 
the fact that both Braikup and 
Barney and even the Little 
Woman assured me that this was 
hardly a fair test, owing to the 
dampness of the long flue, and to 
some other things which I have 
forgotten. 

What I do recall is that from 
this time on I gave up all thought 
of anything like continuous work 
of my own. To attend carefully 
to the progress of our improve- 
ments, to see that the motley and 



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W, Braikup and Barney, 1 1 7 


meretricious workmen that now 
came and went did not altogether 
destroy and carry off all the rest 
of our house and contents, these 
duties were quite enough to put 
one able-bodied man under the sod 
and the dew before the end. 

There were days when they 
worked and days when they did 
not. Sometimes they came for a 
part of a day, or even for a few 
minutes, to nail on a piece of sid- 
ing, or to tear down something 
they had done the day before. At 
other times they dropped in 
merely to walk through the rest 
of the house, which they did at 
will, and with less regard for us 
than if we had been step-ladders or 
mantel ornaments. No room, no 
spot, no corner was free from their 
invasion. They were usually 
“ looking for their tools,” and, as 
one of the paper men missed some 


1 1 8 The Commuters, 


of his one day, and as I discovered 
that my own kit in the cellar was 
depleted, it would seem they 
had found better than we knew. 
I had reached a point by this time 
where my protest in a matter so 
slight as the loss of a few tools was 
but a feeble thing. I said that there 
were still some which had been 
overlooked, and that I would con- 
tribute these also, if this would aid 
in getting on with the work. 

The paper man, however, was 
mad. I had never seen a man any 
madder than he was, standing on a 
step-ladder, with a long strip of 
room-moulding, which he had 
worked hard to fit into place, then 
suddenly making the discovery 
that some miscreant had carried 
off the means of affixing it there. 
For a time it seemed that our 
peaceful undertaking was to end 
in war and general destruction. 


W, Braikup and Barney, 1 1 g 


We did not mind. We had arrived 
at a point where we might have 
flung ourselves in the melee, and 
found relief in carnage and crim- 
son oblivion. But somehow a truce 
was patched up, and the night 
came down on the usual desola- 
tion. 

Almost imperceptibly, as moss 
covers a stone wall, so the siding 
and shingles grew over our at- 
tachment. It had been the agree- 
ment not to open the arch until 
everything was tightly enclosed, 
but one sombre afternoon, on the 
eve of the coldest May storm I 
have ever seen, when the new win- 
dows were only loosely boarded 
and the floor incomplete above, 
they took out those three north 
windows between, and for the next 
four days our destitution was com- 
plete. 


120 


The Commuters, 


VIIL 

Gardens of May, 

M eantime, what of our 

garden. Far be it from me 
to overlook that which be- 
came our chief solace during this 
the season of our sorrow. It has 
had time to come up, now, and I 
must neglect it no longer. 

The cold and continuous rains 
that followed our first planting 
were hardly what we had hoped 
for, but the warm suns that fol- 
lowed and baked the ground, also 
wakened to germination the tiny 
life-thoughts below, and before 
long we saw irregular flakes and 
slabs of crusted earth uptilting on 
the little graves — beds, I mean — 


Gardens of May, 


I2I 


where the radish seeds were 
planted and the peas buried in 
rows twelve inches apart. As for 
the lettuce-beds, where we had 
sown broadcast the Iowa seed, it 
was all at once a collection of in- 
numerable little circus tents. Un- 
der each of these were an5rwhere 
from ten to a dozen tiny salad 
beginnings, the heads of which, 
we had been assured, would “ fre- 
quently measure twenty inches 
across.” I calculated that if every 
one of those incipient salads at- 
tained a size of even ten inches, 
we would have enough to cover 
fifty-four acres of land, with an 
extra hundred or so of plants, for 
good measure. We began to rec- 
ognize the error of our sowing. It 
is hard to cultivate the acquaint- 
ance, or to encourage the proper 
deportment, of young vegetables 
when you cannot get between the 


122 


The Commuters, 


rows with a satisfactory hoe. I 
was obliged to avail myself of the 
miniature garden tools of the 
Precious Ones in order to properly 
reduce the incrustation of earthy 
matter about the radishes, while 
my fingers were the only imple- 
ments that would serve in the til- 
lage of the broadcast salad. It 
was tedious labor, and required 
care, for some of the earth slabs 
were so big that the little green 
Samsons beneath had all they 
could do to hold them up, with- 
out being hammered from above 
with even a toy hoe. I learned 
presently that it was better to pul- 
verize the slabs during the early 
period of the baking process, be- 
fore the brown earthenware stage 
had been reached. I did this, in 
some cases, even before the seeds 
had begun to shift for themselves, 
and usually with good results. I 


Gardens of May, 123 


wish I had done so with the onions. 
As it was, one single fragrant fila- 
ment of green found its way 
through, and we were between a 
young-onionless garden and our 
vow to buy no vegetables. The 
result was the alternate surrender 
of conscience and appetite. 

But most of our seeds came. 
Our lettuce-bed was presently a 
mass of green. Our radishes, en- 
couraged by the cool, continuous 
rains, that bring joy and firmness 
to the radish heart, crowded and 
pushed in their six-inch rows, and 
were on the table a month from the 
day of planting. 

Oh, what so beautiful as the 
crimson hue of the first tiny rad- 
ishes from your own garden! 
Fresh, wet, and tender, — laid 
daintily on a pretty blue and white 
plate, — the dark green leaves 
forming an outward fringe. A 


124 


The Commuters. 


dip of salt, and one crisp, cool bite 
— a morsel like that goes far 
toward making any summer worth 
while. Adelia uttered fervent ex- 
clamations when she saw them. 
The Little Woman rejoiced be- 
cause of her faith in the Iowa 
seeds. Ah, me! I wish our onions, 
too, had been of that brand! 

When the days passed and they 
did not appear, I replanted, and 
we put out a few sets which a 
neighbor gave us. I also replanted 
the herbs. Perhaps Sage had not 
found thyme for Marjoram to be 
savory to Basil. At least, Basil was 
shy, while Marjoram was coy, and 
even thyme would make no prog- 
ress in that unsavory bed. They 
did better on the second sowing, 
and their old-fashioned fragrance 
and flavors became as an odor of 
sanctity in our garden, and have 
filled the drawers of our old dress- 


Gardens of May, 125 


ers with the breath and memory of 
the past. A little of them go well 
in soups, too, and with baked fish 
and fowl — I must not forget that. 

We planted other things, — a 
patch of beans, — a small bed of 
okra, — some more radishes, — 
some hills of cucumbers, water- 
melons, and canteloupes, and in 
one corner of our plot the hill of 
pumpkins, without which no gar- 
den is complete. We also put out 
six tomato-vines, and some pepper 
plants, which we bought one morn- 
ing of an itinerant hothouse, and 
which I stayed out in the rain to 
plant, because I remembered hav- 
ing heard that things put out when 
it rains are sure to grow. The 
pepper plants I set along the fence, 
beyond the patch of corn, which 
the Little Woman and I had 
planted one very hot day, — she 
dropping the kernels and I cover- 


1 26 The Commuters, 


ing with the hoe, in the good old- 
fashioned way. It did not occur 
to me that the corn would pres- 
ently shade the pepper plants and 
render them pale and unproduc- 
tive. We shall set them along the 
other side, next year. 

By this time our interest in the 
garden had become deep and ab- 
sorbing. Indeed, we spent a good 
deal of our time there. It was im- 
possible to live happily in the 
house, while from the garden we 
could still keep an eye on the 
progress of accidents within, and 
another on the persistent weed 
and unambitious Brussels sprout. 
When in town, I found that places 
near the ferry, where garden im- 
plements and seeds and potted 
plants are sold, had acquired for 
me a new fascination, that more 
than once resulted in a later train. 
Armloads of tools, rhubarb, horse- 


Gardens of May. 127 


radish, and castor-oil plants, — the 
last named being good for the 
three m’s — moles, malaria, and 
mosquitoes, — were the price of 
these delays. The tools we needed. 
The plants were presently growing 
in such odd corners of our garden 
as were still unoccupied. 

The question of space began to 
be a rather serious problem. Now 
and then we could still discover 
a tiny vacancy, though in planting 
some zinnias and cockscombs I 
tramped down two bean bushes, 
while in excavating for some hills 
of potatoes I dug up certain cu- 
cumber seeds previously planted. 
I wish now I had dug them all 
up. Cucumbers are a good thing, 
but no garden of such space limita- 
tions is big enough to hold two 
families, where one of them is of 
the cucumber and the other of the 
canteloupe faction. 


1 28 The Commuters. 


As I say, we were confronted 
with the need of space. We dug 
up some of our paths, at last, and 
in one of them I planted marigolds 
— a paper of the Iowa seeds; and 
I pause here to say that whatever 
regrets I may have had concerning 
lost paths, I have never begrudged 
the one devoted to the Little 
Woman’s marigolds. 

Things grew — it was a grow- 
ing year. I have never seen weeds 
do better anywhere than right 
there in our garden. I would not 
have believed that you could raise 
so many on a spot of that size. 
They did not confine themselves to 
rows of from six to eight inches 
apart, but were willing to put up 
with any odd corner that I hap- 
pened to overlook for an hour or 
two. The middle of the ash- 
strewn, hard-baked granitoid path 
was good enough for them, and the 


Gardens of May, 129 


fact that we walked on them daily 
and slashed at them with anything 
that came handy did not seem to 
discourage them or to retard their 
progress. Even after they were 
cut off with the hoe they would 
keep right on growing, while on 
the other hand, a bean or two, that 
I accidentally cut a little, died 
under treatment. Nature made 
weeds for something, I suppose, 
and, whatever it was, she made 
them of rather better material than 
she used for a good many other 
things of more evident purpose. I 
abandoned the hoe at length as a 
method of weed culture, and at- 
tended to this part of our crop 
with my hands. It was hot work, 
but it brought root and all, and 
when I had tossed them into a pile 
to become the compost of the 
future, they were at least tempo- 
rarily restrained. Once, when I 


130 


The Commuters, 


was obliged to go away for a few 
days — on business, though the 
Little Woman still claims I went 
to get out of the muss — I found 
on my return that the weeds all 
appeared to have escaped from the 
compost pile and got back into 
their old places again, full-grown 
and more lusty than ever. 

It needed rather more than the 
“ little real effort each day ” we 
had counted on, to keep our gar- 
den properly ordered during this 
season of many suns and showers. 
As for the Precious Ones, their 
gardens had been overwhelmed, 
obliterated and replanted. They 
were nevertheless quite happy, — 
the Precious Ones, — for they re- 
joiced in the companionship and 
loitering labors of even the most 
reprehensible of our workmen. 
What a blessing that they kept well 
during that memorable season! 


Gardens of May. 13 1 


They raced and rioted with their 
many and motley companions, and, 
like the corn and castor-beans and 
tomato-vines, grew and waxed 
strong through sun and shower. 
With them, and with our six rows 
of golden wax beans, we found 
happiness when the day shone fair, 
even when all was lime-dust and 
dismay within. 


132 


The Commuters, 


IX. 


A Corner in Denims. 


A S room after room began to 
be habitable, we eagerly put 
them to rights for occu- 
pancy. The question of floor cov- 
ering now confronted us. We felt 
that we did not want anything like 
carpets under our rugs, even had 
we been able to afiford them. A 
plain wool filling would have been 
acceptable, but this also meant con- 
siderable outlay. Things already 
were costing a pretty sum, and they 
were likely to cost still more. Our 
bare floors were oiled, but they 
were not of the best material, and 
hardly satisfactory. 

I had a friend who had used 


A Corner in Denims, 133 


denim as a basis for rugs, with 
pleasing effect. We decided to try 
denim, beginning in my attic and 
continuing downward, if the result 
proved encouraging. 

Green being our prevailing tint, 
I said I would have it there, too, 
on the floor, and that it would go 
well with the gray deadening felt, 
which, by the way, we had already 
tacked over the rafters and side- 
walls. 

I may say in passing that putting 
on deadening felt in a garret, on 
a hot day, — fitting and matching 
it about the turns and corners, — 
is not what is popularly known as 
a “ picnic,” even with all the win- 
dows open, and a little woman to 
help with the long strips. It 
seemed cool enough up there when 
we sat down to rest, but, standing 
on a chair, with one hand holding 
up a long, fuzzy length of wobbly 


134 Commuters. 


stuff that insists on pulling out the 
carefully thumb-pressed tack and 
flapping down in your face just as 
you are getting ready to nail home, 
and with your mouth full of yet 
more tacks, and your head tipped 
back to the extreme limit of neck 
angle, the question of heat is 
not always one of temperature. 
Now and then I made observa- 
tions that might have started a 
conflagration, had they been less 
futile. We became more adept 
with practice. I got so I could 
work all day with my mouth 
full of tacks, and could even criti- 
cize the Little Woman’s method 
of holding, or swear when I 
pounded my finger, sufficiently 
well for her to tell the differ- 
ence in these things, which had 
been possible in the beginning only 
from my general attitude, and 
from the vigor with which I 


A Corner in Denims, 135 


usually dropped the hammer after 
the second item. 

The Little Woman helped me 
with the denim, too. I cut it into 
proper lengths, and she ran it to- 
gether on the sewing-machine, 
which we had hauled from under 
tarpaulins for that purpose. The 
amount needed had been some- 
thing less than a bolt, but our mer- 
chant had made us a special figure 
on the latter quantity, and we 
agreed that green denim was al- 
ways handy to have for curtains 
and the like, even if we did not 
continue the idea on the floors be- 
low. 

We acquired some education in 
sewing the denim. The Little 
Woman informed me that in 
future she would baste it before- 
hand, though I did not realize the 
importance of her remark at the 
time. The force of it came to me 


136 The Commuters, 


when we got to stretching the stuff, 
trying to make it cover the floor for 
which it was intended. It seems 
that in sewing it without basting, 
one edge is apt to “ take up ” a 
little, and so not come out even at 
the ends. With an economy inher- 
ited from Puritan ancestors, I had 
cut close, with the result, now, that 
more than one strip was something 
like a foot shorter than the floor 
length to be covered, while here 
and there were what looked like 
ruffled places that must all be 
pulled smooth. 

Denim is stretchy stuff, but to 
pull out those ruffles and gain one 
foot in thirty is no light thing, and 
we got down on the deadening 
felt, which I had put underneath 
as well as overhead, and pulled 
and clawed and tacked and de- 
nounced each other for the better 
part of two days. Here and there. 


A Corner in Denims. 137 


in the side walls, I had left open- 
ings, for storage conveniences — 
these to be covered later with cur- 
tains. They became now our sal- 
vation. We could get in them and 
pull. We established these pull- 
ing-stations at different points 
along the line, adding one or two 
others where the distance was long 
and weary between. 

Altogether it was quite an ex- 
perience. I pounded my thumb 
over a hundred times, and once I 
nailed it firmly to the floor. Now 
and then we found some of the 
tacks I had spilled during mo- 
ments of previous effort. Some- 
times we found them with our 
knees or our elbows. Even when 
we saw them, they were usually 
under the denim, and this made it 
necessary to take up that portion 
again, or to work them across a 
wide expanse of green by a tedious 


1 38 The Commuters, 


sliding process that frequently 
ended in failure. 

The stretching became harder as 
we neared the end. The last cor- 
ner will not.be easily forgotten by 
either of us. I have always heard 
of hot corners ” on the red field 
of battle. I never before quite real- 
ized what was meant, or why so 
many of them have passed into his- 
tory. It takes experience to bring 
home a thing like that. The Little 
Woman and I made a noble fight 
in our hot corner on the green field 
of denim. She got down flat and 
pushed, while I got under the 
window-seat that came just there, 
and pulled and groaned and 
tacked and made appropriate re- 
marks that seemed to encourage us 
both. When it was all over at last, 
we were limp and lame and punc- 
tured, but triumphant. 

The Little Woman dragged me 


A Corner in Denims, 139 


out from under the bench, and we 
surveyed our work with pride. 
The few wrinkles and “ lap-overs ” 
in the last corner would be covered 
by a couch that was to go there. 
The rest of the floor was smooth 
and soft and greenly beautiful. 
We realized now what my garret 
was to be, and agreed that it was 
the best place in the house. 

It was, indeed, pleasant, when 
we had got out all the old traps 
that we were ready to discard else- 
where and put them up there. 
Threadbare rugs and mended fur- 
niture were at a disadvantage 
among better things, but they 
seemed to belong up there, and 
my old fishing-boots and baskets 
and camping-pans, — an old birch 
broom I once picked up in New- 
foundland for two cents, an old 
rush wine-hamper I once fished up 
from the bottom of the sea, — all 


140 


The Commuters. 


the old odds and ends fell into 
place, while some India print cur- 
tains and pillows here and there, 
and the red ladder leading to the 
skylight above, gave touches of 
color that now, with my Franklin 
stove, lend cosy comfort and cheer 
to winter days. I have recently 
got hold of a big old fish-net, 
which I have stretched and looped 
over one side of the wall and the 
sloping ceiling above. It is just 
the thing with the gray deadening 
felt. 

People usually want to stay in 
my garret, once they get here. 
They are willing to roam no far- 
ther, even if they could. It is 
still and restful, and as I turn from 
my writing to look out over the 
brown wood and faded, far-lying 
fields, then back to the bright 
open fire within, and, listening, 
hear the soft murmur overhead of 


A Corner in Denims. 141 


the rain that is just beginning, I 
feel that too few of us have been 
appreciating our garrets, or put- 
ting them to the best use. 

Our success with the floor cov- 
ering above stairs had made us en- 
thusiastic on the subject of denims. 
We resolved that in the liberal use 
of denims there was a vast econ- 
omy, and decided to “ denimize ” 
throughout. Interviewing our 
merchant, I learned that he carried 
three solid colors — green, red, 
and a rather light blue. The red 
we thought would do for the par- 
lor, and the blue for the bedrooms, 
where we were to have pretty 
striped paper with blue bands and 
small twining roses. We didn’t 
need a bolt of each, but it was 
cheaper that way, and we had 
reached a point by this time where 
denim seemed the proper thing in 
the way of fabric for all human 


142 


The Commuters. 


needs. We resolved that remnants 
of any color would make beautiful 
covers and curtains, as well as ser- 
viceable summer raiment for the 
Little Woman and the Precious 
Ones. I said that I could imagine 
nothing more gratifying than the 
harmony in denims which would 
result from a green floor basis and 
a red couch, with pillows of all 
three colors, among which might 
be discovered the Little Woman 
and Precious Ones, as well as 
Adelia and the Tiny Small One, 
each and all in the various com- 
binations pleasingly arrayed. We 
would originate the idea of this 
denim corner, and household jour- 
nals throughout the land would 
hail us as benefactors. 

I had an impulse to get an op- 
tion on all the denim in the market, 
in order to profit still farther from 
the idea. Even an advance of a 


A Corner in Denims, 143 


cent a yard would be quite a sum 
on a million yards or so, but when 
I mentioned the matter to our mer- 
chant, with a view of obtaining his 
financial support, he did not be- 
come enthusiastic, and merely said 
that we had a corner already, so 
far as he was concerned. He still 
had a part of a bolt of green, and 
this we acquired next day in ex- 
change for blue, which we found 
with regret did not accord with 
the blue in our paper, while the 
soft green harmonized almost any- 
where. We were sorry to part 
with the blue — it would have 
looked so pretty on the Precious 
Ones, but we decided that there 
would be a good deal of the red 
left, anyway, and that it would 
have to do. 

Adelia and I laid the denim in 
the library, and our acquaintance 
ripened in the process. There was 


1 44 The Commuters, 


less pulling and exhaustion this 
time, for the Little Woman had 
applied her education in the mat- 
ter of stitching, and put in fewer 
ruffles, while I had cut more lib- 
erally, and had learned to stretch 
toward no corner in particular, but 
gradually toward all the corners, 
as painters stretch canvas. Still, 
you can’t sweat and tug and tack 
half a day with a person, and pull 
at the piece she’s lying on, and 
have her haul at the piece you’re 
lying on, without getting more or 
less sociable, not to say familiar. 

I had wondered sometimes, 
when I had found time to wonder 
at anything these strenuous days, 
why it was that Adelia had come to 
us. I did not know but that she 
might be the Duchess of Dublin in 
disguise, and I wanted to stand well 
with her when she resumed her 
rank and title. I said to her that 


A Corner in Denims, 145 


it probably seemed a bit strange 
that I should perform so much 
menial labor, and so little of any- 
thing else, but that continuous 
brain work had been too much for 
me, and I was doing this for my 
health. Then Adelia confided to 
me that she, also, had come to the 
country for her health, and we dis- 
covered presently that we knew a 
good many of the same people, as 
always happens in companionable 
talk like that. 

This was pleasant enough, but 
it had its drawbacks. I foresaw 
that Adelia would be going back 
to town one of these days, and 
would doubtless attach herself to 
some one of her former patrons. 
I would not mind her telling how 
we had laid denim together. Lay- 
ing denim is distinctly a clean and 
honorable employment, but there 
had been certain things connected 


1 46 The Commuters. 


with my domestic duties, during 
a brief period when the Little 
Woman and Adelia had been coin- 
cidentally ill, that I hoped she 
might forget. 

The library was a real joy when 
we got it done, and it was some 
place to stay, — like the attic, a 
final retreat from the enemy that 
was still rampant within our gates. 
With the green paper on the walls, 
— the green denim forming a nar- 
row border around the big Khiva 
rug on the floor, — the low wall 
cases and the old mahogany desk 
and chairs, it gave us the feeling 
that perhaps through effort and 
sorrow we were to reach at last an 
end that might be worth while. 

We decided against any further 
use of denim in the library. After 
all, there might be such a thing as 
overdoing a good idea. We would 

denimize ” the bedroom and par- 


A Corner in Denims. 147 


lor floors as planned, and in the 
making of certain hangings and 
cushions elsewhere — all of which 
I may say we did, and with pleas- 
ing results. 

But the couches, the Little 
Woman, and the Precious Ones 
were spared. 


1 48 The Commuters. 


X. 

The Trail of the Builder. 

T here came now a period 
of odds and ends, — small 
jobs that were still necessary 
to complete our general undertak- 
ing, and so rid us of the destroyers 
of our peace. 

Mechanics still came and went, 
and with each bit completed they 
appeared to destroy something else 
— something which required still 
other mechanics, and yet further 
destruction, to restore and replace. 
We agreed at length that if we had 
any house left when they were 
done with us we would be lucky. 
Then came the feeling that they 
would never be done with us. It 


The Trail of the Builder. 149 


was a curse laid upon us for our 
ambition — the lifelong punish- 
ment of pride. We rebelled some- 
what at this thought. The punish- 
ment seemed so disproportionate 
to our ambition. 

We dispensed with any consid- 
eration as to their feelings, or their 
good intentions. We decided that 
they had none of either. We con- 
demned them openly when they 
were with us. When they were not, 
we gave them absent treatment. 

At times we became hysterical, 
and laughed. It was the only 
thing left — every other emotion 
was used up. Barney splashed and 
stained our wainscoting with acid 
and cement when he washed down 
our brickwork and put in our 
Portland hearth. Instead of slay- 
ing him, as we were justified in 
doing, we merely laughed at the 
grotesqueness of what we con- 


1 50 The Commuters. 


ceived to be Barney’s finishing 
touch. 

A blacksmith came from the city 
one day to put the ironwork on 
our mantel — the wrought frames, 
and the hood. He loosened a good 
deal of the brickwork, and dug 
deeply into Barney’s Portland 
hearth. When I came up-stairs, 
the Little Woman looked at me 
questioningly. 

“ Well,” she ventured. 

I dropped into a chair. 

“ He’s gone,” I said. 

Good job?” 

“ Nope, botch — as usual.” 

“ I thought as much.” 

‘‘Why so?” 

“ Well, I heard you laughing.” 

Poor Little Woman! There had 
been a time when the echo of my 
laugh had meant life, and renewed 
joy. Now, it meant only some new 
form of disaster and despair. 


The Trail of the Builder, 15 1 


Yet, somehow, matters did pro- 
gress. The painters and paper men 
vacated room after room, and, 
after cleaning them with a rake, 
and broom, and mop, — the rooms, 
of course, — we began to have por- 
tions of the house to call our own. 
Then I got another mason, a gen- 
uine mason, this time, — Heaven 
creates such a one occasionally, — 
to repair my brickwork, and re- 
store Barney’s ruined hearth. He 
put a brick arch beneath the 
hearth, this time, to prevent the 
conflagration Barney had evi- 
dently foreseen. Then between us 
we straightened and properly re- 
set the blacksmithing. Our mantel 
was complete at last. It was not 
a bad job, considering the number 
of workmen, and it really bore a 
good deal of resemblance to my 
plan. 

In the room above, a door and a 


152 


The Commuters, 


window were still lacking. The 
window was boarded. The door 
opened into the apartment occu- 
pied for the present by the Little 
Woman and the Tiny Small One. 
It was no great matter during 
pleasant weather, but when rain 
came it was damp and plastery and 
disagreeable. The cold storm that 
always comes in August found 
both the door and our contractor 
still unhung. The former was put 
in place next day — also the final 
window. Then came the painters 
once more, — to tint the brick- 
work a dull red, to paint the wood- 
work and dining-room floor a rich 
deep olive to harmonize with the 
walls, — to depart at last with 
their ladders and their cans, — 
and, behold, we were rid of paint, 
paste, plaster, and the pushers of 
planes. It had been April when 
they had appeared in our midst — 


The Trail of the Builder. 153 


it was late August when we saw 
them depart. Their “ ten days,” 
with husbandry and usufruct, had 
become even as a hundred. Won- 
derful indeed are the works and 
ways of the builder! 

We awoke to a sense of stillness 
and desertion. Now that they 
were gone, we missed them. We 
also missed other things. As Ade- 
lia put it, we were all the time 
finding new things that we missed. 
Perhaps our carpenters will do 
better on their next job. They 
have more and better tools. 

I have said that we were rid of 
them. I must not be taken too 
literally. The workmen and their 
ladders were gone, but the curses 
lingered. W. Braikup and Barney 
are not to be dismissed so lightly. 

The former called one morning 
before I was dressed, and seemed 
to be in a desperate hurry. The 


154 Commuters, 


final payment on the work was not 
yet due, and was not to be made 
until our chimney had been proven 
a success under various conditions 
of wind and temperature. I still 
had misgivings as to its drawing 
powers. We had built the attach- 
ment for the sake of that chimney. 
If it did not draw, our whole tur- 
bulent summer was a failure. I 
had declared repeatedly to W. 
Braikup that I would not have a 
smoky chimney for a thousand 
dollars! He had assured me as 
frequently that he would not sup- 
ply me with one for double that 
amount. Our figures seemed all 
right enough at the time. Reflect- 
ing on them now, they appear to 
have been too liberal. 

I was surprised at W. Braikup’s 
early call. I was still more aston- 
ished when I learned that he 
wished a settlement. Not that he 


The Trail of the Builder, 155 


was aggressive, — W. Braikup was 
never that, — he was humble and 
beseeching. He had a number of 
things to pay on the ist, — bills 
for material and the like, — the 
amount I owed him was sorely 
needed. In the matter of the 
chimney, I could hold back what 
I thought was right — he would 
satisfy me on the chimney if he 
had to take it down brick by brick, 
and rebuild it from the ground. 

I turned cold at the thought, and 
asked him what amount would an- 
swer for present needs. Then he 
made me a startling proposition. 
He realized, he said, what trouble 
he had made us. If I would give 
him a cheque for the bill, less forty 
dollars, he would not only give me 
a receipt in full, but he would also 
insure the chimney to draw, — so 
great was his need, — so complete 
his faith in the flue as constructed. 


156 The Commuters, 


There was an eagerness in his 
manner that made me sorry for 
him. He had the reputation of 
being well-meaning and honest. 

Poor fellow! ” I thought, “ he 
is pressed for means. Here is my 
chance to be forgiving and philan- 
thropic — also to make forty dol- 
lars.” I hastily drew the cheque, 
took his receipt and guaranty, and 
he was gone. The weather next 
morning being cool and damp, I 
decided to try the chimney under 
these conditions, forthwith. I 
would hurry down, put the crane 
and gipsy kettle in place, build a 
carefully constructed fire, and 
have a bright blaze going when the 
Little Woman and Precious Ones 
came in to breakfast. 

How well I remember that 
morning! The crane hung, the 
kettle swung, the fire lit. The red 
flame leaped at the dry kindling. 


The Trail of the Builder, 157 


The merry crackle became as 
music. The smoke — the smoke 
started bravely up the chimney — 
seemed to hesitate — started again 

— hesitated — halted — peered at 
me questioningly from under the 
hood — wavered aimlessly from 
side to side — writhed and twisted 
in its desire to escape properly 

— made one more final, futile 
effort, and poured out into the 
room! 

In all my life I have never seen 
so much smoke from one small fire. 
Perhaps some of the wood was 
damp — I don’t know. I know 
that in less than a minute there 
were rings and wreaths and layers 
and serpentine forms above and 
about me — that my eyes were 
blinded and my lungs filled. The 
family entered just then, to find 
me madly opening and closing 
windows in a wild effort to find 


158 The Commuters, 


some place where my menagerie 
could make its exit. 

It was of no use. The wind 
seemed to blow from all directions 
at once. The snakes and wreaths 
and things that went out of one 
window came in at another. Some 
of them went clear around the 
house to get in again, while the 
few that had really found their 
way up the chimney joined in the 
procession. Even smoke from our 
neighbors’ chimneys came over to 
mingle with the excitement, and 
take a look at our new dining- 
room. 

The Little Woman says I went 
all to pieces. That when the Pre- 
cious Ones ran about crying and 
getting in my way between win- 
dows, I raged, and declared they 
didn’t draw and never would 
draw, and that I would get even 
with Braikup if I had to kill him 


The Trail of the Builder, 159 


dead, and then pay a fine of a mil- 
lion dollars. The Little Woman 
is noted for her truthfulness, but 
I think her memory is at fault. I 
may have said that the Precious 
Ones didn’t draw, and never 
would, and that I would destroy 
Braikup; but not at so great a 
cost. What I do remember, is 
that, in the midst of all, I 
seized a stray bit of paper from 
the mantel, intending to brighten 
the flame, that had died down, and 
increased the quantity of smoke. 
There was some writing on the 
paper, and I hesitated, for I am 
in the habit of making valuable 
notes on scraps like that, and some- 
times they turn up in just such 
places. My half-blind vision rec- 
ognized my own writing, and 
through a wreath of smoke the 
words — words long before set 
down for the Little Woman: 


i6o 


The Commuters, 


“ I will go softly — softly, all 
my days.” 

An hour later we learned the 
worst. The man who had done 
our tinwork came, and he had that 
tired look on his face. Had we 
settled with Braikup? was the 
burden of his plaint. 

“ I have,” I said. “ I paid him 
yesterday morning, and I’m sorry 
for it. Our chimney doesn’t draw, 
and he’s got to fix it, as guaranteed. 
I’ll go after him, to-day.” 

“ You won’t find him.” 

“ Why, what do you mean? ” 

“ He’s gone. Left the country. 
Collected all he could get, and 
skipped — owin’ me, an’ every- 
body.” 

I knew by the way he said it that 
it was true. Subconsciously, too, 
I had felt that something more was 
about to happen. That was it. 
Unskilled and unfaithful work- 


The Trail of the Builder, i6i 


men had triumphed. W. Braikup 
had succumbed at last, leaving 
general wreckage behind. His 
name was no longer inappropriate. 

Other visitors followed. We 
learned from them certain details 
as to our contractor’s departure. 
He had taken a good deal of 
money; also, in the haste and dark- 
ness of his departure, the wrong 
wife, by mistake. At least, it was 
supposed to have been by mistake. 
Having once seen her, it was not 
thought possible that he could 
have taken her by intention. 

Our visitors also put attach- 
ments on our house. In two short 
hours these men had put more at- 
tachments on our dining-room than 
by any of their former methods 
they would have been able to put 
on in the same number of years. 
This annoyed and distressed us. 
We had paid once — paid with tor- 


i 62 


The Commuters, 


ture and tears and carefully drawn 
cheques. Besides, our chimney did 
not draw, and most of our work 
seemed a failure. It was unjust 
that we should be asked to pay 
again. These men had known 
and trusted Braikup a number 
of years. They had not known 
or trusted us. They had given 
us no hint of suspicion. There 
had been no suspicion. I said 
that if I had to pay again I 
would make good the million dol- 
lar fine proposition, as relating to 
the destruction of W. Braikup. 

Fortunately for us, and for 
Braikup, this violence was 
avoided. The attachments fell 
away like shadows, in the light 
of the fact that we had paid 
innocently — no mistrust of our 
contractor having developed in 
any quarter until it was found 
that he had disappeared. Our 


The Trail of the Builder, 163 


receipt was dated twenty-four 
hours previous to this, and we 
were free, but it seemed a nar- 
row escape. In some States we 
should have had to pay again. 

Having now forty dollars for 
experiments, I got my genuine 
mason again, and we built the 
chimney higher, until it topped the 
roof by at least a foot. It did a 
little better then, but it was not as 
yet a thing of joy. On damp morn- 
ings we built the fire small and 
carefully, and, sitting before it, 
tried to imagine that it was not 
really smoking, but only giving us 
the nice woody smell that always 
came from open fires. Then, when 
our eyes were half put out by this 
pleasure, we became solemn and 
dismal in the thought that all our 
plans and our labors had not 
brought us the thing that we cared 
for most. 


164 The Commuters. 


I grew thinner daily, and my 
nights were haunted by dreams of 
smoke-filled rooms and congested 
flues. It was one of these dreams 
that led to further experiment. 
My mason had dropped the regu- 
lation iron ball through our flue, 
and knocked out a lot of mortar, 
all of which had helped, but not 
enough. His opinion was that the 
flue itself was not large enough 
for the opening below. I did not 
agree with him. I held that so 
long a flue ought to carry the 
draught from an opening of ten 
times its size in square inches, and 
that somewhere there was an ob- 
struction which the iron ball did 
not dislodge. After a night of 
vivid dreams I awoke with this as 
a conviction, and with a remedy. 

Once more I sent for my mason, 
and, while waiting for him, I pre- 
pared the patent obstruction- 


The Trail of the Builder. 165 


finder, revealed to me in my 
dream. I gathered a round smooth 
cobble for weight. I padded it 
with excelsior for size, and cov- 
ered the whole with a piece of 
bagging, thus making a round, 
heavy, yielding ball, full eight 
inches in diameter. To this I at- 
tached the clothes-line, and when 
my assistant arrived we went up 
the ladders together. 

I am not fond of climbing lad- 
ders, or of clinging to the top of 
tall chimneys in a gale of wind. 
But my desperation gave me cour- 
age. We let down the soft heavy 
ball. It went down, down, and 
my heart with it. If it went 
through, the mason was right, and 
the flue was too small. The chim- 
ney would have to come down, 
brick by brick, as Braikup had 
suggested. Down — and still down 
— then, suddenly, it stopped! 


1 66 The Commuters, 


Stopped still and hard! We lifted 
the rope and let it drop. We ham- 
mered the weight up and down. 
Yielding as it was, it would go 
no farther. Pulling the ball up 
and letting it down on the outside, 
we could see exactly where the ob- 
struction lay. It was where the 
flue made the upper bend around 
the second-floor ^replace. The 
sullen Barney had not failed in his 
revenge. Yet I could have shed 
tears of joy — not because the vin- 
dictive fellow had cramped our 
chimney, but because the trouble 
was that, and the terrible prospect 
of rebuilding perhaps averted. 

Hastily we descended. Then, 
erecting a ladder below, my mason 
performed a skilful surgical oper- 
ation on our chimlney — two, in 
fact, for the flue was cramped on 
the lower turn also. The flue at 
these points was a trifle over three 


The Trail of the Builder. 167 


inches across — just large enough 
to let the regulation ball pass. 
Barney had constructed his re- 
venge with more skill than any 
other portion of his work. 

Three hours later the impedi- 
ment had been removed and the 
wounds carefully closed. We 
didn’t need a fire that day, but we 
had it. We piled on wet paper 
and damp wood to make smoke 
— the smoke went where it be- 
longed, and the wind blew it where 
it listed. 

The Precious Ones danced and 
fed scraps of paper to the leaping 
flames. Adelia came in to look 
and wonder. The Little Woman 
kissed me, and thanked God! 


1 68 The Commuters, 


XL 

The Marigold Path, 

B ut I wish you might have 
seen our August garden! 
* There was never such a sea- 
son for things to grow. The days 
gave us alternate sun and shower, 
and our prodigal sowing came 
presently to riotous harvest. Deep 
or surface planting did not matter, 
nor whether the moon was in its 
light or dark period. Iowa seeds, 
Ohio seeds, or Long Island seeds 
from our grocers — after that first 
early sowing, everything went — 
came, I mean — popped out of 
the ground as soon as put into 
it, almost overnight, sometimes. 
Flowers, vegetables, and melons, 


The Marigold Path, 169 


they grew and they grew, — nar- 
rowing and covering the spaces 
between, — branching and bush- 
ing and festooning, — until paths 
were lost and stepping-places for- 
gotten. 

We had wanted an old-fash- 
ioned tangled garden. We had 
almost overdone the thing, for, 
with our economy in the matter 
of space, and our generosity in 
the matter of seed, we had 
achieved a jungle. But it was 
a fair and fruitful jungle, and in 
it we found a compensation for 
many ills. 

When we went down into it with 
a basket, we hardly knew where 
to begin gathering, and, likewise, 
I hardly know where to begin to 
tell of it. Perhaps I should start 
with the tall row of wild Western 
sunflowers on the lower side. The 
seed of these had been sent to us 


1 70 The Commuters, 


from that State to which they have 
given their name, and they never 
grew taller or sturdier, or bloomed 
more prodigally on their native 
plains than they did along our gar- 
den-side. The flowers were small, 
like the English variety, but often 
there were as many as a hundred or 
more to the stalk. Our stalks were 
about fifteen feet tall, and at 
blooming-time they formed a won- 
derful wall of gold. Nothing 
could be more beautiful behind a 
garden, or require less cultivation. 

Perhaps our corn is next in im- 
portance. At least, it was next in 
size, and occupied more space than 
any other crop. The forty hills 
which we had planted on that hot 
May morning yielded no less than 
ten dozen beautiful Country Gen- 
tlemen’s ears — I mean, of course, 
ears of the Country Gentleman 
variety. That doesn’t sound quite 










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The Marigold Path. 171 


right, either. What I want to say 
is that our corn was of the variety 
known as the Country Gentle- 
man; also, that from our forty 
hills we gathered ten dozen ears; 
and, furthermore, that if said corn 
was not sweeter and more tender 
than any corn ever produced be- 
fore, then my testimony on the 
witness-stand is of no value, so far 
as agricultural matters are con- 
cerned. I hoed that corn, and 
picked it, and husked it, and saw 
it through the kitchen. I also saw 
it brought steaming to the table. 
I know that it was our corn, and 
that it was the best corn ever 
raised. I said so at the time. Then 
the Little Woman said so. Then 
the Precious Ones said so. Then 
Adelia said so. Then the Tiny 
Small One whooped and fanned 
the air with her fists and tried to 
say so, too. We are a truthful fam- 


172 The Commuters. 


ily. You cannot get better testi- 
mony than that. We had another 
row of corn, in the little upper 
garden of the year before. It was 
pop-corn, and it yielded fifty ears 
of the “ poppiest pop-corn that 
papa ever popped.” The Precious 
Ones said that. 

Beans seem to come next to 
corn. I will speak of our beans. 
Yet I hesitate, and a feeling of awe 
that is almost sadness comes over 
me when I approach so vast and 
venerable a subject, and recall the 
lavish succulence that overflowed 
from garden to basket and from 
basket to table until the Precious 
Ones rebelled at so much luxury, 
and secretly in my soul I wished 
that I might never taste, see, or 
hear of beans again. 

It was distinctly a bean year — 
such a year as Jack must have 
known when his famous stalk grew 


The Marigold Path, 173 


up and up to a world above the sky. 
We did not have that variety. Ours 
were the Golden Wax and Green 
Abundance, and the magic of their 
growth was in their yield. They 
began in June and never stopped. 
Cold beans, hot beans, pickled 
beans — beans for dinner, beans 
for supper, beans even for break- 
fast. It was regarded as disloyalty, 
even perfidy, to refuse them, until 
the Precious Ones, who didn’t 
know the difference between dis- 
loyalty and dismay, expressed a 
distinct disapproval of beans. 

It was a signal for general re- 
volt, and we called on the neigh- 
bors for help. At first we picked 
them, — the beans, of course, — 
the neighbors, too, for that matter, 
and distributed baskets here and 
there among those who had sup- 
plied us with tools and catalogues 
and good advice. Then we issued a 


1 74 The Commuters. 


general order that those who would 
might come and help themselves. 
In the midst of our be(a)nefi- 
cence, we even contemplated put- 
ting up a sign, such as is sometimes 
seen where excavations are in 
progress. Only that our sign, in- 
stead of offering free dirt, would 
have read: 


FREE BEANS 


I could continue indefinitely this 
voluminous subject, but there is 
much else that demands attention. 
I will make mention of our okra. 

The taste for this vegetable must 
be acquired. People do not care 
for the pale green mucilaginous 
pods at first sight, but, during a 
long-ago residence in the Missis- 
sippi back country, where okra is 
a staple article of diet, — almost 
the only one, sometimes, — I had 


The Marigold Path, 175 


achieved the okra habit to the ex- 
tent of making a vow that if ever 
I planted a garden of my own I 
should have okra. I had, there- 
fore, put in two very short rows 
for my own use. These I had 
tended with care. 

When the first few delicious 
pods came along, the Little 
Woman regarded the dish doubt- 
fully. Then she commented in a 
manner that would suggest the 
possibility of our having made 
better use of even that tiny bit of 
our precious ground. When I pre- 
vailed upon her to taste one of the 
tender, uninviting - looking de- 
lights, her opinion for the moment 
was unchanged. But the okra 
habit is insidious. The next time 
we had it she ventured another 
taste. The third time, she took a 
whole pod. Then she was lost. 
After that, I had to get to the table 


1 76 The Commuters, 


early, and within easy reach of the 
okra dish, to get a fair division. 
Next year we are going to plant 
more okra, so that the Precious 
Ones may be encouraged to taste 
and grow fond of this delectable 
and nutritious blessing. 

We were rich in salads. Nine 
new things to eat raw,” one of our 
choicest combinations, flourished. 
The broadcast bed of lettuce be- 
came a green rosette of inexhausti- 
ble freshness, while the escarole 
came generously, and, even after 
once cut off, kept on coming, 
sweeter and more tender than ever. 
Radishes are usually a vegetable of 
early spring, becoming all pith and 
vanity with the warm dry days of 
summer. During this season of 
showers and cool nights, they re- 
tained all the crisp genuineness of 
character that had won our earlier 
approval. Our radish-bed, into 


The Marigold Path, 177 


which, through the advice of our 
neighbor across the fence, we 
dropped two seeds wherever we 
took out one radish, remained ra- 
diant the season through. The 
parsley, which always takes its 
time about coming, and in getting 
a fair start after it does come, was 
by August so thick and strong that 
it would have made a hiding-place 
for a rabbit, provided the rabbit 
was of a small breed and would 
keep his ears down. Then there 
were the tomato-vines, set out 
along the fence and partly lost in 
the sunflowers, but big enough and 
prolific enough in all conscience, 
and the poor pepper-plants, that 
were overshadowed and lost be- 
hind the corn. We only got two 
peppers from them, but they were 
very good peppers, and taught us 
a lesson for next year. 

It is a wonder that more things 


Ij8 The Commuters. 


were not lost, for we had planted 
without much regard as to sizes, 
and with no thought of such ex- 
uberant growth. We had to 
crawl through some things to get 
to others. The corn was like a 
cane-brake, through which I 
found one day a curious tunnel-like 
trail, as of some sizable creature, 
I followed it in its mazy wander- 
ings, and, behold, it led back to 
the compost-pile by the fence, 
where the Precious Ones had es- 
tablished a house,” — a wonder- 
fully secluded habitation, shut in 
by walls of green, and topped by a 
roof of blue and gold, — the sky 
of summer, and the sunflowers of 
the West. In one corner was a 
little peach-tree, two small dry 
limbs of which made excellent 
“ hang-up things ” for their dolls’ 
apparel and household utensils. 
The dwellings of men were but a 


The Marigold Path, 1 79 


few rods distant, but in that little 
house on the compost-pile they 
might have been as many leagues, 
while the voices of unsuspecting 
ones without — giants, maybe, and 
ogres — came mysteriously through 
whispering walls and tapestries of 
green. 

Dear heart, I thought, here, 
while we toil and worry over ever 
so small an addition to our abid- 
ing-place, Nature has provided a 
residence beyond the skill of 
human hands! No noise, no fuss, 
no unskilled and unfaithful work- 
men ! Silently by day and night the 
harmony of perfect toil goes on, 
and lo, one day the corn is in tas- 
sel, the sunflowers break into blos- 
som. Come, now, fairy-folk, birds, 
and Precious Ones! Your house 
is ready — the key is in your 
hands! Come, and stand not on 
the order of your coming! For the 


i8o 


The Commuters, 


sun swings to the south, and the 
day hastens when the walls of 
green must wither, and the roof of 
gold grow dim. Haste to the 
Happy House of Summer-time, 
while the day is fair and the birds 
give welcome ! 

Oh, house upon the compost- 
pile, — with wall of green and 
roof of gold, — with glories fair 
and manifold, enduring such a 
little while! 

A habitation frail and small, 
where childhood’s little day abides 
— of that deep bosom which pro- 
vides, at last, a haven for us all. 

I must do something for this 
habit of digression. I grow worse 
as I get older. By the time I am 
fifty I shall be trying to write 
poetry. 

There were two things that we 
could not raise — Brussels sprouts 
and a sun-dial. The former only 


The Marigold Path, i8l 


gave happiness to certain ants and 
other insects, of which there were 
quantities that damp season. Two 
quarts of inferior buds, worth per- 
haps twenty cents, could hardly be 
called a successful result from 
something like fifty well cultured 
plants. We shall buy sprouts an- 
other year. They come late, any- 
way, when our vow as to marketing 
shall have expired. The sun-dial 
we did not plant. The first cost 
was rather greater than we had 
thought. Besides, the spot in- 
tended for it was soon lost in a 
maze of vines and foliage. We 
have it to look forward to, and, 
once planted, it will mark the shin- 
ing hours for all time. 

In the little upper garden our 
cantaloupes had taken possession 
of most of the surface area, and 
adjacent paths. Long runners of 
yellow blossom and incipient 


i 82 


The Commuters, 


Rocky Fords pushed out in every 
direction, and became a subject 
of daily comment and discussion. 
Their growth was a beneficent joy 
to us. Each morning we picked 
our way through the tangle of 
dewy vines, comparing sizes of 
those of the day before, forecasting 
the future of each, and so treading 
the melon path of peace. Our 
grief came when we found that 
their flavor partook of the adjoin- 
ing cucumbers and intermingled 
pumpkins. It was another lesson. 
Our pumpkins will be planted far 
away next year, — our cucumbers 
still farther, — they will be planted 
by other people. 

But I must not pass our pump- 
kin-vine with only this grudging 
and half-condemnatory word. It 
deserves more than that, if only for 
its aggressive enterprise. It began 
quietly enough in what then 


The Marigold Path, 183 


seemed a remote corner. We were 
rather pleased when it sent one 
long arm across several beds of 
other things to renew acquaint- 
ance with its old time-honored 
neighbor, the corn, and we were 
only vaguely uneasy when another 
crept down the melon path and 
through our division fence. But 
when it sent out a dozen more 
tentacles, and began to lay vio- 
lent hold on everything in reach, 
to lop over the hedge and start 
pumpkins on our neighbor’s prop- 
erty, to climb up the morning- 
glory strings and look in the 
kitchen windows, to watch its 
chance for getting into the cel- 
lar, — perhaps to save us the 
trouble of harvest, — to beat at 
the back screen door for admission, 
and to ascend the new arbor with 
the evident intention of entering 
up-stairs, we thought it about time 


184 The Commuters. 


to call a meeting and adopt resolu- 
tions. 

But it would take something 
more than resolutions to restrain 
that green-armed octopus that so 
silently through the hours of day 
and dark had laid its mastery upon 
us. It was like a vicious habit, 
or certain aggressive combinations 
of capital. A lantern slide photo- 
graph of it would have been worth 
a good deal of money to a tem- 
perance lecturer, and perhaps even 
more to an anti-trust orator. It 
found its way into the dreams of 
our Elder Hope, who knows fairy 
stories, and became a great green 
dragon, with long clinging tenta- 
cles and numerous knobs of gold. 

No spot was immune. Over the 
fence, under the fence, through 
the fence — pumpkins in the corn, 
pumpkins hanging in the hedge, 
a great pumpkin that grew like a 


The Marigold Path. 185 


magic golden throne in the little 
house on the compost pile. We 
discussed and resolved, and then, 
remembering that even certain 
corporations may be blessings in 
disguise, we surrendered to the 
Trust of the Golden Pumpkin. 

With the exception of the sun- 
flowers, I have avoided mention- 
ing our floral culture until the last. 
I have done so purposely — not 
because they were unimportant, 
but because in our garden they 
were really the embroideries and 
decorations of the feast — the des- 
sert that follows and gives flavor 
and luxury to the whole. 

They were mostly of the old- 
fashioned sorts — zinnias, cocks- 
combs, pinks, pansies, and asters. 
Wherever there was a bit of bor- 
der, or an open place at the end 
of a row, we dropped them in; 
and they grew and flourished, and. 


1 86 The Commuters, 


like the thyme and marjoram, 
filled our garden with old-time 
friendliness and welcome. Our 
morning-glories clung and clus- 
tered about our gateway, as we 
had planned, festooning both sides 
until we had to push our way 
between. By the kitchen, too, and 
by the dining-room they flour- 
ished, notwithstanding the tramp- 
ing painters and the ruthless car- 
penters. Fresh and lovely — each 
morning a new glory of pink and 
white and purple — they came 
nodding at our windows, while 
their broad green leaves shut out 
the midday sun. 

A bunch of black-eyed susans 
grew at one corner of the house, 
— having somehow strayed in 
from the fields to bloom and glad- 
den us the season through, — and 
at another corner grew our holly- 
hocks, beautiful single ones — of 


The Marigold Path. 187 


which we had obtained roots, in 
order to have blooms the first year. 
They stretched out a little way 
along the garden fence, and their 
tall spikes gratified us as we saw 
them waving welcome to the 
morning, or ranked in stately order 
against the evening sky. 

But there was something that we 
thought more radiant even than 
these. It was our marigold path. 
Such a splendor of gold in every 
shade — from light lemon to deep 
lustrous brown — as resulted from 
the Little Woman’s single packet 
of “ mixed varieties ” I have never 
seen, or even anybody who claimed 
he had seen, either. The blooming 
seemed late. We began to dread 
disappointment, and to wish we 
had our lost path back. Then a 
bud showed here and there. Then 
a lot of buds. Then an open flower 
or two. Then a few more, and 


The Commuters, 


1 88 


then, suddenly, there came such a 
burst of marigold glory as must 
fill those fair gardens beyond the 
sun. 

And this remained to us. Long 
after the recreant Braikup and his 
meretricious men had become but 
as sombre pages of a summer’s his- 
tory — long after the corn was 
brown and withered, the sun- 
flowers faded, and the little house 
by the peach-tree was open to the 
view of every passer: even after 
the frost had laid its blight on the 
too presumptuous pumpkin, their 
golden splendor lingered. From 
it daily we filled our vases, our 
jars, and our jardinieres, and put 
by all unhappy memories in the 
light of the marigold path. 


Pussum' s Wife et AL 189 


XII. 

Pussum^s Wife et AL 

B ut I have neglected our faith- 
ful Pussum. The second 
great epoch in his career 
seems worth recording. 

Somehow we never connected 
Pussum with romance. He was so 
stately and reserved in his treat- 
ment of his neighbors. Even when 
we saw him considering with 
vague interest the slender black 
and white cat who occupied the 
cellar of the vacant house next 
door, we did not regard the matter 
as more than a casual acquaint- 
anceship. Anyhow, being well 
into our building and gardening, 
we were too busy to take more than 


190 The Commuters, 


a passing interest in Pussum’s 
affairs. 

On the whole, it seemed to be 
a rather hard summer for Pussum. 
His favorite corners were disor- 
dered, his favorite cushions tum- 
bled and upset. Less than this has 
driven more than one bachelor to 
domesticity, and, perhaps, after all, 
we were to blame. 

When the house was settled at 
last, he returned much as usual, 
and presently fell into disfavor, 
through a persistence in occupying 
a newly and bluely upholstered 
chair, which we were trying to 
keep handsome and free from 
hairs. Repeated eviction and dire 
threats were of no avail. Pussum 
slept in the chair whenever it stood 
upright, and protested when it was 
made uninhabitable with a book, 
or when its angle made rest a 
matter of discomfort and peril. 


Pussum' s Wife et Al, 191 


It was this latter unkindness on 
our part that resulted in disaster 
to the chair, and in deep disgrace 
on the part of Pussum. I suppose 
I tipped the chair a little too sud- 
denly, and Pussum, being dream- 
ing, perhaps, thought he was fall- 
ing over a precipice. At all events, 
he clawed and clung desperately, 
with the result that there were two 
long slits in the blue fabric, that 
were as wounds in our hearts. 
When he was finally captured and 
banished, I said that this was the 
end. At sunrise he should die. It 
was simply a question whether I 
would tie our little feline brother 
to a tree and use him for target 
practice, or take him down cellar 
and quietly remove his head with 
my new saw. 

On the whole, I preferred the 
saw, but the Precious Ones became 
violent at mention of either 


192 


The Commuters. 


method. They were for overlook- 
ing the whole matter, and declared 
that nothing should harm a hair of 
their “ darling cat.” Still I was 
unforgiving, and the next fore- 
noon, which was sunny and Sun- 
day, when I saw him blinking at 
me from the steps, while I filled 
some vases from the marigold 
path, I was indifferent and cool in 
my manner toward him. 

Then presently something was 
rubbing against my leg and purr- 
ing. I was surprised at this — it 
was not Pussum’s way. Neither 
was it Pussum, for when I looked 
down I saw that it was the slender, 
and hitherto wild, black and white 
cat from the vacant cellar, next 
door. 

“ Well,” I said, “ what does this 
mean? What do you want?” 

The black and white cat looked 


Pussum' s Wife et AL 193 


up pleadingly, and continued to 
rub and purr. 

No, go away,” I growled, “ we 
do not want you. WeVe got one 
cat too many, now.” 

The black and white cat looked 
up. 

That’s just what I want to talk 
about,” she purred. “ Our poor 
Pussum.” 

“ Oh, our poor Pussum. Um — 
well, never mind our poor Pussum. 
He’s in disgrace. He’s torn my 
beautiful new chair with his 
claws.” 

“ Yes,” assented the black and 
white cat, thoughtfully, “ I know; 
but do you always like to be pushed 
out of your favorite seat? And 
don’t you sometimes have acci- 
dents, too? ” 

^‘What has that to do with it? 
Pussum is a cat. We gave him a 
good home — he should appre- 


194 Commuters. 


ciate it. He was a stray cat, and 
we took him in.” 

‘‘I — I am a stray, too,” mur- 
mured the black and white cat. 

^‘Well, what of it? What has 
that to do with Pussum? ” 

I know how much he must ap- 
preciate his nice home,” the black 
and white cat purred softly. “ I 
know he does, too, for he has told 
me about it, and of how good you 
are to him. I hope you will for- 
give him.” 

“ Oh, well,” I said, I suppose 
we must. Go away now, and don’t 
bother me.” 

The black and white cat nestled 
closer. 

“ One thing more,” she said. 

Do you know that I — I’m Pus- 
sum’s comfort — his companion in 
grief and sorrow? and that I have 
no friends, or home? ” 

What was the use? After that, 


Pussuni s Wife et AL 195 


the black and white cat took up 
residence in Pussum’s cellar, and 
ate out of Pussum’s pan. Their 
family came along in time to 
brighten the dull winter days. 
There were three of them, and the 
resemblance was quite strong on 
both sides. 

I have never seen a prouder 
mother than the black and white 
cat. As for Pussum, his interest 
was one of curiosity rather than of 
paternal solicitude. He removed 
his quarters to a distant part of the 
cellar, perhaps so that he might 
enjoy a night’s rest. When I 
brought him to the box of excel- 
sior, and dropped him down 
among his family, he seemed dis- 
turbed, and the lavish endearments 
of the black and white cat, who put 
her face to his and purred and 
murmured and caressed him, only 
caused him to draw away with 


196 The Commuters. 


mingled embarrassment and indif- 
ference. 

“ Aren’t you ashamed, Pus- 
sum? ” I said. 

“Just like a man,” purred the 
black and white cat. 

We were now somewhat over- 
whelmed with our feline riches. 
The Precious Ones were delighted 
with the family below stairs, and 
it seemed a difficult problem. In 
time we became rather interested 
ourselves, and the problem became 
more difficult. We were justly 
outraged one morning, when the 
Little Woman came in and told me 
that a dog — the butcher’s, prob- 
ably — had killed the black and 
white mother cat, and that she had 
seen her lying stark and cold in 
the lower garden. Now the pretty 
little ones below stairs must be put 
away — there was no help for it. 
We spoke of how sweet they had 


Pussum' s Wife et AL 197 


become, and how the Precious 
Ones loved them. We recalled all 
the many good qualities of the 
mother cat, and spoke of her fond 
attention and gentleness, denounc- 
ing the butcher and his cruel dog 
in unmistakable terms. 

Then I went down to do my 
duty. On the way I passed the 
sideboard, where a tall bottle 
stood. I stopped and poured out 
a deep, fiery draught. I suppose 
other executioners do that, too. 
Then I went below. 

It was rather dim there. I could 
not see, but as I approached the 
box I heard a strong purring, as 
of a large cat. Poor, noble Pus- 
sum,” I thought, “ he has shown 
his true character by taking charge 
of these motherless little ones.” 
Then suddenly I started, for with 
eyes grown accustomed to the dusk 
I was looking down, not at Pus- 


198 The Commuters. 


sum, but at the black and white 
cat, tenderly nursing her babies. 
She seemed warm and uninjured, 
and not stark, by any means. 

I ascended to the garden. There, 
sure enough, was a dead feline, — 
almost her duplicate, — perhaps a 
long lost twin brother, who had 
returned to die. I disposed of him 
decently, then, taking our own 
black and white cat in my arms, I 
ascended to the Little Woman. 
She was sewing quietly when I 
put the gentle pussy in her lap. 

I thought the Little Woman 
would be pleased, and shed tears 
of joy at this happy surprise. In- 
stead of that, she jumped, quite 
suddenly, altogether regardless of 
the fate of the fallen and fright- 
ened tabby. 

“ Why — what ! ” she began, 
“ what on earth — ” 

I was obliged to explain, and we 


Pussum' s Wife et AL 199 


both became hysterical, while the 
harmless mother cat flew out of the 
room and down-stairs to her dar- 
lings. 

Little Woman,” I said, at last, 
when I got able to say anything, 
“ what you don’t know about cats 
would make an encyclopaedia.” 


200 


The Commuters, 


XIII. 

Casting up the Account. 

W E never seemed to get quite 
through paying. A num- 
ber of times, when we 
thought we had settled the last and 
final bit of our liabilities, a new 
demand would be presented — a 
new hydra head to be smitten off, 
a new wound to be seared over and 
forgotten. The brace for the tall 
new chimney was an “ extra,” of 
course. Likewise the storm-win- 
dows, and a new patent damper for 
the furnace, guaranteed to save 
anywhere from nine to ninety-nine 
per cent, of the coal used, and to 
supply at least double the heat. 
The spark-screen, andirons, and 


Casting up the Account. 201 


other adjuncts for the fireplace — 
these, too, were outside the con- 
tract, and a good deal easier to 
buy than to pay for, even when the 
buying meant a mousing about in 
dusty antique stores, and the pay- 
ing a simple matter of drawing a 
cheque. 

It is easy to draw cheques when 
the account is replete — in fact, it 
is rather a pleasure to do so. I 
am sure the Little Woman used 
to regard me with an admiration 
akin to awe as I carelessly filled 
in the figures and name of payee, 
and signed my name with a neat 
flourish on the line below. 

I suppose she wondered why I 
never let her do it, and very likely 
considered me selfish in arrogat- 
ing to myself this important and 
rather agreeable duty, though I 
did not think of this at the time. 

It presently became less agree- 


202 


The Commuters, 


able. When the third figure of our 
balance waned into the perspective 
until it became a thin line that 
would become a vanishing-point 
at the least touch, the construction 
of a cheque became a serious mat- 
ter. It was no longer lightly con- 
ceived and carelessly put together, 
with decorative scrolls at the end, 
like a spring lyric. It became a 
thing of forethought and reflec- 
tion, — to be wrought at last with 
a grave dignity that savored of the 
epic’s solemn close, — with that 
feeling of sadness and longing that 
marks the end of each and every 
waning balance in the banker’s till. 

Oh, waning bank accounts! 
What stories you could tell me! I 
could write forever repeating only 
those tales, and if I repeated them 
well and truly, the world would 
always listen to that echo of hope 
and struggle, to the sigh and 


Casting up the Account. 203 


whisper of decline. Writers there 
are who bewail that there is noth- 
ing left to say. Nothing left! 
Give me a banker’s ledger, and in 
five minutes I will show you a hun- 
dred starting-points, each written 
in the crimson hue of life, each 
leading back to a story as new, and 
as old, as every emotion is new and 
old in a life of time and change. 
Comedy, tragedy, farce — they all 
are there, on the red-ink side. And 
they are good stories — I know, 
for I have produced material for 
a number of them myself. Only 
those were too tragic. Some day I 
shall persuade my friend the 
banker — if he remains my friend 
— to start me on the comedies — if 
he can point them out. 

As I was saying, our balance be- 
came a feature of consideration, 
even of discussion. There were a 
good many things we still needed 


204 


The Commuters. 


in the way of furniture and decora- 
tions, now that our habitation was 
to our liking. We also needed 
clothes. When we sat down in our 
rather imposing rooms, in which 
there were a few good old pieces 
of furniture, and some truly an- 
tique rugs, the fact that our ap- 
parel was also good and old did not 
give pleasure to the Little Woman. 

She became almost disagreeable 
about it one day, when I was argu- 
ing for a new chair, and declared 
that we looked like tramps that 
had got in while the folks were 
away. 

I still urged the chair. I said 
that clothes were a matter of dis- 
play and vanity. Also that they 
were transient and fleeting, while 
the chair would be the comfort of 
a lifetime. Whereupon, the Little 
Woman stated that there were cer- 
tain garments that were not used 


Casting up the Account, 205 


for display, except in magazine 
advertisements, and that these, as 
well as the chair, were matters of 
comfort, and needed a good deal 
more. She insisted that we had 
laid out enough on extraneous lux- 
uries for one year, and that there 
were a few things we might forego, 
in order to be decently clad. 

To do the Little Woman justice, 
I may say that I believe her gen- 
eral tendency is rather toward fur- 
niture than raiment — this being 
the true collector spirit, and to be 
commended. She had smothered 
her better inclination, this time, 
and was ready to sacrifice the 
chair for a silk waist and some- 
thing to go under it. She meant 
to have garments, whatever the 
cost. You shall see how she was 
punished. 

We went together. Neither 
could quite trust the other alone in 


2o6 


The Commuters. 


the department-store revel that was 
to follow the purchase of the waist. 
The fascinations of a department 
store are too great to be resisted 
singly. Even working together, 
and in full accord, we yielded 
oftener than was good for our 
balance-sheet, or for the prospect 
of the new chair any time within 
a period when we might reason- 
ably hope to need comforts of the 
flesh. 

We didn’t pay as we bought. 
There is great saving of time in 
getting a transfer-card, and a 
greater certainty of prompt deliv- 
ery in having goods come C. O. D. 
When we got through, we had 
bought most of the things we could 
think of; also, a good many we 
would never have thought of with- 
out seeing them, and that we 
couldn’t remember when we were 
on the train going home. 


Casting up the Account, 207 


I had not counted the exact 
amount of our debauch, but had 
run the figures up loosely and lib- 
erally, and, realizing that the end 
was now inevitable, drew a cheque 
next morning for our full balance. 
Then I went away, leaving the 
cheque and the obsequies in the 
hands of the Little Woman. If 
the amount was not quite enough, 
she was to make it up out of her 
weekly purse. If it was too much, 
she was to keep the change. 

By some strange quirk of for- 
tune it was too much. It was sev- 
eral dollars too much. The Little 
Woman was elated until the driver 
regarded the cheque rather doubt- 
fully, and decided that he couldn’t 
give money for it. He would give 
the goods freely enough. The 
amount of them was fully ten times 
as much as the change coming, but 
they were only goods. Money was 


208 


The Commuters, 


a different matter. He had prob- 
ably heard of bogus cheques. 
This might be one of them. He 
couldn’t exchange good money, 
however little, for a bogus cheque. 
Perhaps he was a new driver. 

The Little Woman’s argument 
was of no avail. He was ‘good- 
natured, but he was firm. He was 
also ingenious. He suggested that 
another cheque for the correct 
amount would set everything 
straight. If the missus only had 
another cheque, now, she could 
write it to fit the figures of the 
bill. 

The Little Woman hesitated. 
She had never been allowed to 
perform this especial and sacred 
rite, though she had signed almost 
every other kind of paper, from a 
receipt for a load of coal to a 
first mortgage, with coupons. A 
cheque seemed of less importance 


Casting up the Account. 209 


than these. Besides, a new cheque 
would leave a balance as the start- 
ing-point of a new account. We 
were as one; why not? 

She told me about it when I got 
home. It seems she had certain 
misgivings by that time — prob- 
ably the promptings of a subcon- 
scious memory of banking matters 
and a cashier’s arbitrary require- 
ments in the matter of individual 
signature. It was too late to do 
anything that night. The bank 
was closed long ago, and I did not 
think it wise to spend the night 
in looking up the president, or 
even the cashier, to explain. 

Besides, such explanation as I 
could invent quickly did not suit 
me. I wanted to sleep on the mat- 
ter, and take it up fresh in the 
morning. Then maybe I could 
make up something that would 


210 


The Commuters, 


keep the Little Woman in the 
background. 

I don’t think she slept a great 
deal. She had a growing idea that 
an officer would be waiting down- 
stairs in the morning, and that she 
would never look on our Precious 
Ones or her silk waist again. I 
consoled her with the suggestion 
that, while ignorance of the law 
was regarded as no excuse, there 
were certain extenuating circum- 
stances — that I thought the Pre- 
cious Ones would hardly be grown, 
and that the silk waist might be 
in fashion again by the time she 
returned to gladden our hearts 
once more. Still, there was an un- 
certainty about the outcome that 
made the bright morning, the new 
waist, and our general assortment 
of furnishing goods as ashes to the 
Little Woman. She was sorry now. 
She wished she had let me buy the 


Casting up the Account, 21 1 


chair. We had an early break- 
fast. 

The banker regarded me rather 
doubtfully when I had finished my 
statement. He had known me on 
both sides of the ledger for some 
time, but this was a new phase. 

“You say your — eh, house- 
keeper made a cheque, without a 
full knowledge of the seriousness 
attaching to the signing of names 
in that promiscuous way? ” 

“I — yes, that’s about it.” 

I was covering the Little 
Woman’s identity; also, a lack of 
knowledge not altogether unnat- 
ural to the sex, but which I felt 
that he, as a banker, might regard 
with scorn. 

“ Of course,” he proceeded, “ as 
one not directly related to you the 
matter appears somewhat more 
serious. Had it been really one 


212 


The Commuters, 


of your family, now — ^your wife, 
for instance, or your — ” 

“ Oh, but it’s just the same, 
you know,” I put in. “ I mean, 
of course, that she — that she’s 
really one of the family — that 
is, of course, it’s all right, I 
mean.” 

I had not explained my plan to 
the Little Woman before starting. 
I had an undercurrent of wonder, 
now, what she would say if she 
could overhear my efforts to get 
her decently out of the pitfall into 
which her pride had tumbled us. 
I hoped she was enjoying her new 
things. 

A clerk brought the cheque at 
that moment. It had just come in 
from the clearing-house, having 
travelled safely through several 
miles of circumlocution. The six 
inches between the banker’s hands 
and mine would be its hardest tug. 


Casting up the Account, 213 


The banker scrutinized the signa- 
ture severely. 

‘‘ Rather delicate hand for a — 
housekeeper. How long did you 
say she had been in your service? ” 

I named the largest number of 
years within human limits, and re- 
viewed the proprietary interest she 
had always felt in our affairs, — 
the amount of receipts and things 
she was daily called upon to en- 
dorse, — and gave another and im- 
proved version of the episode with 
the intelligent driver, who had 
been willing to give any amount 
of goods for my cheque, but no 
change. I abused the driver, — 
there was no harm in doing that, 
— he wasn’t there, and it wouldn’t 
have hurt him, anyhow. I think 
the driver saved the situation. 
The banker took a hand with 
me, at abusing him. Then we 
were united against a common en- 


214 


The Commuters, 


emy, and the Little Woman was 
safe. 

I thought she would be tearful 
and contrite and grateful when I 
arrived with the news that it was 
all right and that she was to remain 
with us. I suppose she really was 
grateful, and I know that she was 
glad, for she went and put on all 
her new things and was so proud 
and had such an air that I didn’t 
dare for the life of me to tell her 
the “ housekeeping ” details of my 
interview with the banker, and 
have not mentioned them till this 
day. 


City Guests, 


215 


XIV. 

City Guests, 

D uring the progress of our 
building we had not mingled 
with the social whirl. For 
one thing, we had no time; and 
then our house was in poor condi- 
tion to receive guests. We did not 
encourage visitors from town, and 
those who did come were glad 
enough to plead important duties 
or engagements, and take the first 
train that would carry them far 
from our environment of falling 
bricks and flying shingles. 

But with the departure of W. 
Braikup and the other minions of 
Belial, and with the gradual res- 
toration of order, we began to re- 


2 1 6 The Commuters. 


member those who had brightened 
our old van-dwelling days. We 
wished to knot up the loosened ties 
of friendship, and to show them 
what we had been doing. We 
didn’t feel exactly proud, I think, 
but we did want them to see that 
through a summer’s toil and tribu- 
lation we had reached at last some- 
thing besides disordered rooms 
and undesirable smells, even 
though the latter were usually 
considered wholesome. We were 
not entirely settled, but would be, 
soon. We held a consultation, and 
invited friends for the following 
Sunday. 

During the next two or three 
days we set things to right here and 
there, leaving a good deal for 
Saturday afternoon and Sunday 
morning, that the house might 
look fresh and orderly at the 


City Guests, 


217 


moment of arrival, I suppose we 
left more than we intended to. 

When we had finished a scanty 
and hastily prepared Sabbath 
breakfast, and began considering 
the things still to be done before 
train time, we realized that we 
would better be getting the ma- 
chinery in motion. I said I would 
put the finishing touches on the 
rooms while the Little Woman 
dressed the ducks and the Precious 
Ones, with the general assistance 
of Adelia, who was of a willing 
and pleasant disposition, but delib- 
erate of movement and not over- 
resourceful. We agreed that we 
wouldn’t overdo matters. We 
wouldn’t make too much of a 
spread on the dinner, or the ap- 
pearance of the house. We said we 
didn’t like to look fixed up for peo- 
ple, but to have things appear just 
natural and homelike, as they were 


2i8 


The Commuters, 


all the time. Then I took a walk 
through the rooms with a view of 
locating a place of beginning. 

It was not altogether easy to do. 
There seemed to be a good deal re- 
quired to make our surroundings 
appear “ just as they were all the 
time.’’ Most everything needed 
dusting, and a good many things 
were not in the best places. I de- 
cided that I would begin up-stairs, 
and work down. I would take one 
end of the house or the other, and 
work along through the rooms and 
back through the hall, and so to the 
lower floor. Then I remembered 
that my garret was still higher up, 
and of special importance. I 
went up there. 

It wasn’t very bad, but there 
were several things to do, never- 
theless. The fish-net which I was 
going to drape about the ceiling 
was still in a heap on the floor, and 







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City Guests. 


219 


there remained some prints and 
posters to be tacked up, then a gen- 
eral straightening and final wip- 
ing, such as was needed below 
stairs. I went down for the carpet- 
sweeper, a broom, a dust-cloth and 
pan, some screw-eyes, a hammer, 
nails, tacks, and some advice from 
the Little Woman. 

I found her already in action 
when I reached the kitchen. She 
was handling a pair of six-pound 
ducks as if she were in a gymna- 
sium, directing Adelia in the mat- 
ter of pots and pans, and heaping 
blood-curdling promises upon the 
Precious Ones, who were contin- 
uously in front of her with persist- 
ent inquiries as to when the train 
would arrive, what we were going 
to have for dessert, and when they 
were to be arrayed in their best 
clothing. 

She paused long enough to ask 


220 


The Commuters. 


me if I was through, as she needed 
me to whip some cream for the 
charlotte russe. I answered very 
gently that I hadn’t begun yet, and 
had come down to get her to help 
me find some things that I wanted. 
She stepped on Pussum’s tail just 
then, and the two of us escaped 
frantically in different directions. 
When I got back to the garret I 
was willing to begin with such 
things as I had. 

It is not easy to drape a large 
fish-net over a garret ceiling, and 
it takes time. When I stopped to 
look at my watch I grew cold. 
Then struggling with mesh and 
tangle I would grow hot again, 
and the stuff would drop down in 
my face, and catch in the claws 
of the hammer. 

I got into a kind of fever at last, 
and when the thing was up and I 
was down to the real business of 


City Guests. 


221 


Straightening and pulling and wip- 
ing, I found myself working with 
a rapidity that verged upon de- 
lirium as the moments flew. I 
suppose there were things that I 
overlooked, and other things that 
I dusted twice over. It was not 
material. When I had finished 
you probably could not have told 
which was which. Then I sud- 
denly remembered two curtain- 
poles still to be put in place, with 
the curtains properly draped. Be- 
fore I was entirely done with these 
I recalled that a small bric-a-brac 
shelf was to be tacked over one of 
the upper hall doors. It took two 
trips to the cellar to get ready to 
do this. On the way up I over- 
took the Little Woman, who had 
finally got things well along in the 
kitchen and was steering the Pre- 
cious Ones toward the bathroom. 
She seemed rather sombre in her 


222 


The Commuters. 


manner, and I paused to cheer 
her. 

“ Don’t overdo matters,” I said, 
pleasantly. We don’t want to 
look fixed up for people. We want 
things to seem just as they are all 
the time.” 

I suppose she thought I meant 
this for irony, for she announced 
rather grimly that the matter was 
getting to be pretty nearly no joke 
so far as she was concerned, which 
remark somehow touched the 
safety-valve, and we both laughed 
hysterically, as was our wont. I 
was presently tacking away at the 
shelf, to the accompaniment of 
lamentation and protest, these 
being the natural manifestations 
of childhood when the functions of 
toilet are in progress. 

The shelf did not fit very well. 
I became a bit annoyed before I 
finally got it fastened and a mug 


City Guests. 


223 


and a plate in place on it. I rested 
the lower edge of the plate on the 
end of a tape-measure, letting the 
other end hang down. I had been 
obliged to look for the tape several 
times, and I wanted it to be in 
plain view when next it was 
needed. It hung directly in the 
doorway now, where I couldn’t 
help seeing it. Then I became 
occupied with matters in the 
library, and forgot the tape, and 
the fact that the plate rested on 
the upper end of it. I was in a 
hurry when I came out. My time 
for dressing was very brief, indeed, 
and the tape swinging across my 
face added to my annoyance. I 
jerked it rather viciously. It came 
down. Also the plate that held it. 
The latter landed quite fairly on 
top of my head, and separated in 
a shower about me. My comment 
was heard by Adelia in the 


224 


The Commuters, 


kitchen, and put a sudden stop to 
the diversion in the bathroom. 
The Little Woman poked out her 
head to take account of the disas- 
ter. 

Don’t overdo matters,” she 
said, pleasantly. “ We don’t want 
to look fixed up for people. We 
want to seem just as we are all 
the time.” 

I suppose she thought that was 
humorous, but I found it impossi- 
ble to seem amused. The plate 
had been a mended one, but it 
would never be mended again. I 
gathered up the fragments and 
hurled them with all my strength 
into the vacant lot adjoining. Then 
I came back and dressed with such 
dignity as the time limit would 
permit. 

I was knotting my tie when I 
heard the wild whoop of an- 
nouncement that “they” were com- 


City Guests, 


225 


ing! I gave a pull and a twist, and 
my collar came unbuttoned. I re- 
peated some of the comment on the 
plate disaster, and tugged and per- 
spired and leaped into my coat, 
gave my hair a lick or two, and 
looked in to see what the Little 
Woman was doing. 

I had expected to find her in a 
state of unfinished preparation and 
mental distress. Nothing of the 
sort. She was already dressed and 
down-stairs, pulling things into 
shape in the lower hall, which in 
my perturbation I had overlooked. 
I hurried to her assistance. 

We emptied an ash-receiver, put 
some filled vases in position, car- 
ried a chair from the hall into the 
parlor and a chair from the parlor 
into the hall, wiped the furniture 
and the books and picture-frames, 
turned the reversible table-cover 
dust side down, grabbed dolls from 


226 


The Commuters, 


the corners, trundled a small car- 
riage into the playroom, flung 
broom, duster, carpet - sweeper, 
dust-pan, hammer, and tacks into 
the kitchen, and as the bell went 
off swung wide the door to our 
guests, smiling a joyous welcome, 
with the assurance that we were 
so glad they had come at last, as 
the Precious Ones had grown im- 
patient, waiting. 


The Passing of Adelia. 227 


XV. 

The Passing of Adelia — and 
Loula. 

W HEN once more the 
gloom of autumn gathered 
along the fields, when the 
pumpkin-vine lay blighted and 
blackened with the frost, — its 
golden store ripe for the gath- 
ering, — when the summer of our 
discontent had become as a closed 
link added to the chain of seasons, 
then also the gentle Adelia passed, 
and became a serene and simple 
annal of domestic history. 

I find it difficult to speak of 
Adelia in a manner that will con- 
vey a fair impression of us all. 
She came to us in a time of sore 


228 The Commuters, 


need, and she was with us through 
a period of many trials. That she 
was willing to remain with us 
through those weeks when all was 
hurly-burly — when lime-incrusted 
feet tramped back and forth over 
floors but lately swept, and when 
the kitchen range was filled with 
pots and pails of distressing mix- 
tures — seems to me a fact worth 
recording with gratitude. 

There were many good things 
about Adelia. She was a gentle, 
free-hearted soul, and her care- 
fully-modulated speech, with its 
trace of the motherland, was all 
that could be desired. On the 
whole my feeling is that under the 
hard conditions of that season we 
did not live quite up to Adelia’s 
level, and that we dragged her 
down. 

It is true that she could not cook 
when she came to us, and she was 


The Passing of Adelia. 229 


never able to construct a fire in the 
kitchen range, or to keep it over- 
night. These, however, were no 
great matters. I was willing to at- 
tend to the small matter of the fire, 
and both the Little Woman and 
myself rather enjoyed giving her 
lessons in cooking. She could boil 
water soon after she came to us, 
and almost immediately acquired 
the pleasant knack of coffee. She 
learned other things as the days 
passed, and while she never was 
what you might call a brilliant 
pupil, her willingness was in her 
favor, and she was fairly entitled 
to a diploma as ‘‘plain cook” when 
she graduated from our school. 

As I was saying, I fear we de- 
moralized Adelia. It was hard for 
even a very strong nature to sur- 
vive that period when, as a friend 
expressed it, the top of the sugar- 
bowl was in the parlor and the 


230 


The Commuters, 


top of the parlor in the sugar- 
bowl. Adelia made an attempt at 
order and neatness when she came, 
but it was a hopeless undertaking. 
When it was given up, the ten- 
dency itself must have languished. 
Order was finally restored, and 
with the house fairly set in order we 
somehow thought it would stay so. 

Not that we wished to be too 
clean. We had no desire to drive 
Happiness out the window with 
a broom, but it seemed to us that 
the small accumulation of dust and 
debris might be removed with so 
slight an effort, as compared with 
the former herculean tasks, that it 
would be mere play for Adelia to 
keep things bright-shining as the 
sun.” 

I suppose that was just the 
trouble — it was too easy. After 
what we had endured, the daily 
accumulation seemed too little to 


The Passing of Adelia, 23 1 


count. She was waiting for the 
customary inch or two of conglom- 
erate to collect on the floor, for the 
gray windrows to gather along sills 
and sideboard. 

In the gentlest manner possible 
we called her attention to these 
things. She aroused briefly and 
seemed willing to please; but lassi- 
tude was in her movement, and the 
sideboard and the glassware were 
marked with the curse of careless 
wiping. What Adelia needed was 
discipline, and this we could not 
give her. We are not strong on 
discipline at any time, and after 
that season of democratic house- 
hold regulations and general shar- 
ing of discomfort, severity on our 
part was altogether out of the 
question. In a new place she 
would be a new broom, with a new 
mistress to set her in order. I 
think we all realized this. Then, 


232 


The Commuters. 


too, the summer was over, and win- 
ter in the country was not what she 
had desired. 

We had grown fond of Adelia, 
and she had grown fond of us. The 
Precious Ones and the Tiny Small 
One loved her. They wept when 
she left us, and her own eyes were 
not dry. Some days later she re- 
turned briefly, with a distribution 
of gifts. Gentle Adelia ! The dust 
has been removed many times since 
you left us, and every trace of our 
discontent has long since vanished. 
Our blessings and our good-will go 
with you. And, wherever you may 
be, may you find that unfaltering 
discipline and sustaining example, 
without which the best of service 
falters and the best of servants fail. 

And now came Loula — Loula 
of the merry heart. She was a 
strong girl — full of youth and 
idiom, and sentimental songs. Her 


The Passing of Adelia, 233 


youth and strength were commend- 
able. Her songs were harmless 
enough, and pleased the Precious 
Ones, who, on the second day of 
her administration, were singing 
with rapture and what seemed un- 
necessary energy the rhythmic 
measures of “ Come Back, Bar- 
ney ’’ and “ Louisiana Lou.” 

Her idioms were more question- 
able. We endeavor to give the 
Precious Ones a fairly correct 
habit of speech, and our Adelia 
had been well-nigh free from the 
curiosities of the language as it is 
spoken between Fourth Avenue 
and the River of the East. Loula 
was a walking thesaurus of that 
terse and bracing vernacular of the 
East Side. Needless to say, the Pre- 
cious Ones were “ not slow in get- 
ting on to her curves.” Within a 
week it would have been well-nigh 
impossible for them to speak of the 


234 Commuters, 


Tiny Small One as being fretful, 
when Loula repeatedly referred to 
her manner of protest as “ chew- 
ing the rag.” 

It is true that Loula’s forms of 
speech often had the advantage 
of brevity, which always means 
strength. Certain it is, they ap- 
pealed to the ear of childhood. 
The Precious Ones “ got a move 
on themselves,” and before many 
days could “ give points ” to most 
of their associates. We recalled 
Adelia’s cultured Hibernese, and 
wished that our Loula might be 
more like her in her modes of 
speech. 

They had one thing in common. 
Neither of them could cook or at- 
tend to a fire when they came to 
us, and both received instruction. 
They mastered the art of cookery 
about equally well, but Adelia 
never learned to keep or cover a 


The Passing of Adelia, 235 


fire, while Loula attained a fair 
knowledge of these matters about 
the end of the second month. Then 
she asked an increase of salary. 
When she got so she could turn off 
the dampers of the kitchen range, 
and, by leaving the top lid open a 
little, manage to hold fire over- 
night, she demanded more money 
or a diploma. We consulted, and 
decided to give her the diploma. 
And so another pupil graduated 
from our school and went forth to 
conquer. 

Like Adelia, Loula had certain 
commendable qualities, most of 
which I have already mentioned. 
In addition, I may say that she 
generally approved of our meth- 
ods, and declared that my chafing- 
dish oysters were the best she ‘^ever 
et.” The taste for my welsh-rare- 
bits was rather less easy to acquire, 
but this she also achieved in time. 


236 The Commuters. 


and as Pussum is gratified by the 
appearance of the mouse-trap, so 
Loula was likely to become merry 
and musical at sight of the chafing- 
dish. 

Yet, on the whole, it was better 
that she should go. The Precious 
Ones had learned most of her 
songs and enough idioms to keep 
us busy for a year. Her departure 
reduced our baker’s bill by one- 
half, and there were other substan- 
tial benefits. We agreed to give 
up taking pupils for a week or two, 
and have a sort of vacation. We 
began it by picking our pumpkins. 

We had already tried them, and 
they were good. In fact, there 
never had been anything so good 
as those pumpkin pies out of our 
own garden. We kept them ready 
for instant demand at any hour of 
the day. Being in the edge of the 
Great American Pie-belt, we were 


The Passing of A delta. 237 


under no restrictions, and with the 
courage of our appetites served 
them regardless of rules or social 
condemnation. Now we would 
gather the final harvest. 

We went down into the faded 
garden. On either side of the 
little gateway the morning-glories 
were a black tangle — their seeds 
dropping, to prepare for another 
summer a new wealth of vine and 
blossom. The bean-bushes were 
mildewed and scattered, the corn 
was withered, the okra stalks, still 
stiff and upright, held a few dry 
rattling pods, the little house on 
the compost-pile had vanished and 
left not a trace behind. A single 
spot of green — the parsley-bed — 
seemed as a splendid emerald amid 
a tangle of decay. 

Hand in hand we walked among 
the ruined beds, recalling the day 
we had planted this, the mornings 


238 The Commuters, 


we had gathered that, the things 
we had learned for another year. 
How small the little place looked 
now that it was empty! It hardly 
seemed possible that it could have 
held all we planted and so many 
weeds besides. It seemed as if one 
might hoe over the entire bit of 
ground in a few minutes. Yet I 
had put in several hours of cer- 
tain very hot mornings in cleaning 
up even a portion of that fertile 
spot. Now it was over. There 
were no more mosquitoes, no more 
busy ants, no more butterflies. In 
one corner a dead bee clung to a 
purple thistle bloom. The weeds 
were dead, too, all except the 
chickweed, which, like kind 
words, blossoms in every season 
and can never die. 

We turned to look at our pump- 
kins. In all directions where the 
aggressive green tendrils had 


The Passing of Adelia, 239 


found their way the uncovered 
store now lay revealed, ripe and 
sweetened for the harvest. Our 
catalogue has stated that pumpkins 
of this variety often weighed as 
much as two hundred pounds each. 
I don’t think ours weighed that 
much. Either they did not, or I 
have become a tower of strength. 
Two by two I carried them into 
the cellar, and made of them a 
pyramid of gold. 

Then it was nightfall. The sky 
was heavy and overcast — the dry 
stalks about us complained in the 
chill wind of evening. Quietly 
we passed up the little steps, 
through the gate of withered 
morning-glories. Summer with 
its thorn and blossom was ended. 

We stir the embers in the fire- 
place and put on a fresh log. The 
bright blaze leaps up the chimney. 


240 


The Commuters, 


figures dance on the wall, the 
shadow of the easy chair reaches 
out on the firelit floor. We have 
paid well for that blaze and that 
shadow, but now, as the year closes 
in and night and storm gather 
without, we put cost and discom- 
fort by. Other summers will bring 
us other gardens — and other 
griefs. Never mind them now. 
The past is the past — the future 
still undreamed. Come sit by 
my side and let the world glide, 
for we shall ne’er be younger.” 


The Precious Ones, 241 


XVI. 

The Precious Ones, 

W HETHER or not the Pre- 
cious Ones deserve a chap- 
ter to themselves is a matter 
of question. Whether they deserve 
a good many of the things they get, 
frequently becomes a disputed 
point, and they usually get the 
benefit of the doubt. So it will be 
now. Those who object may skip 
this chapter. 

The Precious Ones rise early. 
At least, they wake early, and be- 
tween their beds occur long and 
seemingly unnecessary conversa- 
tions, which the rest of the house- 
hold would willingly forego. 
Frequently the interchange of 


242 


The Commuters , 


ideas becomes a discussion over 
some point which was not material 
in the beginning, and is lost almost 
immediately in the rapid-fire ex- 
change of “I did!” ‘‘You 
didn’t!” “It was!” “It wasn’t!” 
“ You can’t! ” “ I can so! ” which 
might continue indefinitely but for 
authoritative interference and the 
general uprising of the household. 

The Precious Ones do not dress 
immediately. They are full of the 
joy of life and a desire for food, 
but they are willing to restrain the 
latter for the benefits of a rough 
and tumble pillow fight, which 
sometimes requires severity to 
quell. The Tiny Small One finds 
interest in these matters, and abets 
any sort of melee or bedlam with 
waving arms and expressions of 
delight. Completing her first 
round in the race of life, — being 
carried most of the way, but get- 


The Precious Ones, 243 


ting ready to creep and totter the 
remaining distance, — she has be- 
come a Precious One on her own 
account. When she puts her fore 
feet on the edge of her pen and 
squeals, — that is, I mean, when she 
puts her chubby hands on the edge 
of her crib and gives vent to her 
approval, she arouses our own en- 
thusiasm; when she topples back, 
with feet waving in the empyrean, 
we are moved to pet names and 
poetry. 

There she lay, the Tiny Small 
One, with the sunrise on her 
tresses, with her feet stretched up 
to heaven — waving wildly to the 
zenith. And the elders, there be- 
holding, saw the silken sheen of 
morning, saw the feet that waved 
so wildly, and in tenderness they 
named her — Foot-in-Air ” the 
elders called her — “ Foot-in- 
Air ” and sometimes “ Silk-top.” 


244 


The Commuters, 


Breakfast never comes soon 
enough for the Precious Ones, once 
they are ready for it. I fear our 
discipline is a fugitive and erratic 
quantity. I know we surrender 
at such times when all the author- 
ities we have ever tried to read 
counsel firmness. A piece of toast 
or a cracker is easier to produce 
than a convincing argument, and 
is more soothing in its effects. I 
suppose we shall all pay dearly 
for that toast and cracker some 
day, but on the whole it seems 
worth a good deal when breakfast 
won’t be on the table for ten min- 
utes, and the Precious Ones are in 
no condition to wait for even a 
tenth of that period. 

Outdoor life appeals to the 
Precious Ones. Hardly is their 
breakfast down when they are 
ready to face whatever the day has 
brought in the way of weather. 


The Precious Ones, 245 


Sun and storm, heat and cold, — 
all weathers look alike to them, 
and the matter of proper clothing 
is not well considered. They 
would go into zero weather bare- 
headed, bare - handed, perhaps 
even bare-footed, if we would let 
them. I have had my heart wrung 
by seeing meagrely clad children 
on the icy streets of the great city 
— little ones with tattered clothing 
and uncovered purple hands. I 
wonder if they really feel and 
mind these things as much as we 
think. I wonder, because I have 
seen the Precious Ones come in 
from stinging cold, their own little 
hands pinched and purple in spite 
of the nice warm mittens — in 
their pockets. I have known them 
to dash out, hatless, coatless, and 
mittenless, into weather that found 
its way through the warmest cloth- 
ing I could carry. Verily it would 


246 The Commuters, 


seem that the wind is tempered 
to childhood; or, it may be, that 
childhood is tempered to with- 
stand the wind. 

On very bad days, life in the 
playroom is hilarious and inter- 
esting. It is particularly so during 
and after the Christmas period, 
when new games and toys enliven 
the festivities and enhance the 
vigor of debate. Their forms of 
argument seem curious, and not 
always bearing on the point in 
hand. They are more than likely 
to become personal. In the matter 
of a Lotto score, for instance, it 
would be thought convincing for 
one to remark: 

“ You’ve got green hair! ” 

And the other: 

You’ve got plaid hair! ” 

“ You eat grasshoppers! ” 

“ You eat snakes! ” 

It is almost impossible to under- 


The Precious Ones, 247 


stand what a matter of personal 
appearance, or diet, has to do with 
Lotto, or why snakes should be 
considered the final word. Certain 
it is that all hope for peaceful ad- 
justment ceases at this point, and 
higher powers are obliged to step 
in to avoid carnage and mortality. 

I suppose there are children 
who do not quarrel. I know there 
used to be — many of them. I 
met them in my Sunday-school 
books. They had a habit of dying 
in the last chapter. Perhaps that 
is why goodness has become scarce 
and unpopular in these later days. 
Remembering those stories I 
should grow uneasy if I saw the 
Precious Ones becoming saintly. 
Not that they are always belliger- 
ent, or even noisy. There are 
whole hours when they play in the 
fondest harmony, and when the 
sweetness of childhood is unal- 


248 The Commuters, 


loyed. Perhaps there have been 
whole days of this sort. It seems 
doubtful, for I think I should have 
been frightened, and remembered 
the circumstance. 

The Precious Ones are given to 
anniversaries. Christmas, Thanks- 
giving, Fourth of July, and all 
other calendar holidays, are a mat- 
ter of course. Then there are all 
the birthdays, each of which is 
duly observed with feasting, 
friends, and ceremony. That Pus- 
sum’s birthday must remain un- 
known to us is regarded as a mis- 
fortune, and there has been a 
movement toward getting the 
powers to set a day when proper 
observance might be made of an 
event so important to us all. 

Then we have other days of re- 
joicing. The day of our removal 
to the country is one of these, and 
always during September we pack 


The Precious Ones, 249 


a basket and go to a little field 
above the Harlem River, where in 
the old van-dwelling days we 
found a bit of rural green, and a 
breath of trees and flowers. This 
we call our “ High-bridge Day,” 
and the little man who near by sells 
ginger ale and peanuts and coffee 
welcomes us each year with a 
pleasant smile of remembrance, and 
waves us a fond adieu at parting. 
We shall have as many holidays 
by and by as they have in Italy, 
where the government has been 
obliged to take the matter in hand, 
with a view to securing at least one 
or two days in the week for the 
performance of labor. 

The Precious Ones are demo- 
cratic, and their choice of friends 
interests me. Our Elder Hope in 
particular is ultra-socialistic in her 
selections. I said to her one day: 

“Who is that dingy little girl 


250 The Commuters. 


that spent the afternoon with 
you? ’’ 

“Oh, why, that’s Bessie! Her 
mamma washes for Mrs. Briggs! ” 
“ Um — nice little girl? ” 

“ Just lovel-ly! ” 

“ And that other little — eh, 
girl. That one out on the lawn 
this morning? ” 

“ Why, that’s Hattie ! Her papa 
is a dirt-digger! ” 

“ Oh ! — ah — certainly — any 
special kind of dirt? ” 

“ No, just dirt. It comes up out 
of the street. Sometimes he finds 
things in it! ” 

“Dear me! How exciting! 
Nice little girl?” 

“ Um, yes! Nicer even than 
Bessie! ” 

Of course there was nothing 
more to be said. I have always 
stood for democracy, myself, and 
have maintained that those who 


The Precious Ones. 251 


toil at the tub, and those who go 
down into the dirt and dig, are the 
life and sinew of our system, and 
not to be despised. 

Yet the Hope is not without 
aspiration. She has some thought 
of being a princess, with “ proud ” 
dresses and blushy ” hair, or a 
school-teacher — she isn’t quite 
certain which. On the whole, she 
thinks she would prefer to ‘‘ sell a 
candy-store ” as a regular thing, 
and be a princess or a school- 
teacher for recreation. There was 
a time when she aspired to become 
a laundress, but she appears to 
have outlived this dream. 

The candy-store ambition is 
shared by the Younger Joy, who is 
of modest tastes, and satisfied with 
anything that resembles chocolate. 
The Hope is of livelier imagina- 
tion. Then, too, she has overdone 
the chocolate tendency, and cannot 


252 


The Commuters, 


now understand why any one 
should ever want to see chocolate 
again. This is likewise true of 
birthday cake with pink icing. 
The Joy never overdoes these mat- 
ters. The effort to do so has been 
a failure. Chocolate, pink icing, 
lemonade, charlotte russe, and 
what not, separately or together, 
it matters little. Divided they 
may stand, but united they fall, 
and the destroyer of medleyed 
richness retires only to return 
again, uninjured, undismayed, and 
unappeased. I have known men 
that would give a million dollars 
for ten minutes of the Joy’s diges- 
tion. 

The Hope is inclined to look for- 
ward and to reflect. She informed 
me a few days ago that she had 
decided not to marry yet, because 
she might be sorry for it. “ You 
see,” she added, “ I might find 


The Precious Ones. 253 


somebody I’d rather have,” which, 
on the whole, seemed a mature 
conclusion for her years. She 
added that she was afraid she 
might marry a burglar. She had 
read about a little girl whose 
father was a burglar, and, having 
decided that I was hardly fitted 
for this profession, her next danger 
seemed the chance of marrying 
one. The Joy cares nothing for 
such possibilities. Cake with 
raisins and a largess of chocolates 
cover the Joy’s entire speculative 
field. 

The Hope is devout. If she 
omits any feature of her prayers, 
she will begin them over. The 
Joy, more reckless in the matter of 
ritual, is willing to skip every 
other line of “Now I lay me ” — 
so taking a short cut to grace. 

I am likely to overdo this chap- 
ter. The subject to me seems in- 


254 The Commuters, 


teresting, and there is a good deal 
I would like to say on the theme 
of child culture that isn’t set down 
in any of the books we have tried 
to read. I have mentioned, I be- 
lieve, that our discipline is uneven 
and not at all in accordance with 
the rules laid down by the heart- 
hungry, childless women who have 
time to think and write of such 
things. We have tried to be as 
they would have us, to govern with 
dignity and calm purpose, but we 
can’t do it. Our discipline is er- 
ratic. Our punishment is likely to 
be summary, and in the nature of 
a surprise. After reading a chap- 
ter of the authorities, we have 
agreed between ourselves that as 
parents we are probably the poor- 
est examples in the world — that a 
day’s record of our home doings 
would blacken any book ever writ- 
ten on household government. 


The Precious Ones. 255 


Yet somehow we love the Pre- 
cious Ones, and, strange as it may 
seem, they profess to love us — not 
only in the hour of favor, but also 
in the moment of their direst dis- 
grace and sorrow. Perhaps even 
this will count for something in 
the end. 

I would not have it understood 
that we do not reason with the 
Hope and the Joy. We have 
wasted a good deal of energy in 
that way. That is, of course, it 
may not have been wasted, but 
reasoning with the Precious Ones 
always seems a good deal like say- 
ing your prayers; you never can 
tell when you are making an im- 
pression. 

The hardest hour comes with 
the day’s close. Then they are 
possessed with a mighty weariness 
of both flesh and spirit, and are 
correspondingly difficult. It is the 


256 The Commuters, 


time designated by Mr. Longfel- 
low as the Children’s Hour, and 
far be it from me to gainsay him. 
It is theirs beyond a doubt, though 
there have been evenings when for 
a brief period it seemed to be the 
special province of one not often 
named in polite society. Of 
course, anything like punishment 
is worse than useless at such a time. 
As well trample flowers for bend- 
ing before the wind. The clouds 
gather. The storm breaks. Life 
becomes strenuous and unreal. But 
five minutes later, when all are 
tucked up snug, as we pass from 
one couch to another and look 
down into rosy, sleeping faces, it 
is as if we could hear the whisper 
of angels’ wings. 


Things I Have Not Told, 257 


XVII. 

The Things I Have Not Told. 

T his is not a story with a pur- 
pose. If it had a purpose in 
the beginning, I have forgot- 
ten what it was, and if any reader 
has come this far, he will probably 
agree with me that both of us have 
had enough to bear without the 
burden of teaching or being taught 
with carefully turned phrases and 
theories finely spun. 

On the whole, it has been a 
sort of general unburdening, — a 
kind of experience-meeting, — and 
I suspect that more than one 
reader, if I am so fortunate as to 
have more than that, may be re- 
minded of troubles of his own, per- 


258 The Commuters, 


haps even moved to speak of them, 
with no other purpose than that re- 
lief of spirit which is said to follow 
confession. 

There are a good many things 
which I have not told. There are 
experiences which, with the aid of 
a hypnotist, I have been able to 
forget. Others I have omitted for 
the reason that the comic papers, 
so-called, have told and retold and 
overtold them until they have lost 
all point and flavor, and appeal 
now only to a few benighted flat- 
dwellers who lack the desire or the 
courage to become “ commuters,” 
as we are termed, and to the resi- 
dent of Todd’s Switch, who 
wouldn’t know a real commuter if 
he saw one fully panoplied and 
lowering the record in a race with 
the 8.15 train. 

Nobody else reads comic papers 
any more. The intelligent city man 


Things I Have Not Told, 259 


has little time for their gaudy 
plates and their threadbare humor, 
while we of the suburbs do not 
need to brighten our days with ar- 
tificial means. We have more real 
fresh genuine humor in one day 
than would be conceived in a life- 
time by the rusty, dusty scribbler 
of ‘^comics,” who never gets nearer 
to the country itself than the ferry 
landing, and whose chief idea of 
suburban life is a picture of a wild 
creature with a bag in one hand 
and a piece of pie in the other 
leaping fences and ditches to over- 
take a train that is some miles away 
in the red, white, and blue land- 
scape. 

Let us protest against this pic- 
ture. I have never eaten pie while 
running for a train. If I ever 
should, I would not attempt to 
jump ditches and fences unless it 
was very firm pie, such as grows 


26 o 


The Commuters, 


in Harlem, and not the mellow 
pumpkin or the mellifluous mince 
and custard of rural life. I have 
hurried to catch trains, of course. 
Breathes there a man who hasn’t? 
I once fell down, and my hat 
rolled under the train. But then 
I simply waited until the last car 
passed, picked it up — the hat — 
and climbed on the rear platform 
— of the car. There was no dis- 
grace in that — nothing to call for 
a lurid picture in mittens, muffler, 
and arctic overshoes, as we have 
been only too often depicted by the 
artist who is professionally funny. 
I have never worn mittens and 
muffler and arctic overshoes when 
I needed to catch a train. I should 
have missed my train if I had. 

There is another comic-paper 
idea which I feel has been over- 
done. I refer to the home-coming 
with innumerable boxes and bun- 


Things I Have Not Told. 261 


dies and fruit-trees and clothes- 
horses, attached and piled as long 
as they will hang on. I have never 
brought home a clothes-horse, nor 
as many bundles as the artist puts 
into his pictures. I couldn’t do 
it. I have tried repeatedly, and I 
know the pictures are exaggerated. 
To be sure, I have had some 
curious assortments, and I may say 
that it is no cinch ” to get home 
with a lawn-mower, six window- 
screens, and a pound of cofifee, even 
when the coffee is in a little gunny- 
sack and the screens are supposed 
to be securely tied together. 

Of course they were not securely 
tied. They slipped and wabbled a 
good deal, while the little bag of 
coffee had a way of sliding from 
the place I put it, just as I had 
carefully arranged matters and 
was getting ready to move on 
again. I had thought the firmly 


262 


The Commuters, 


sewed little gunny-sack a good 
idea, but it wasn’t. Had it been 
a paper sack I should have distrib- 
uted the coffee in various pockets, 
and it couldn’t then have slipped 
from under my arm or my chin at 
inopportune moments. 

After all, the problem was easy 
enough. I merely put the mower 
down on the ground where it be- 
longed, tied the screens on top of 
it, and laid the coffee on the 
screens. Then quite comfortably 
I mowed my way home, while 
neighbors came out to observe and 
commend my ingenuity. 

Speaking of mowing, that is an- 
other comic-paper idea. The com- 
muter at home is supposed to be 
always mowing. In summer he is 
thought to begin the day with a 
buzzing dewy round, and to fol- 
low the whizzing wheel of toil into 
the far dimness of evening. Let us 


Things I Have Not Told, 263 


object to this! Let us declare that 
we do not always mow! Why, I 
have let my lawn go without mow- 
ing for ten days at a time, and then 
traded a man two suits of clothes 
and a pair of shoes to operate on 
it with a scythe. I have given up 
mowing my terrace altogether. I 
gave it up one hot day when the 
mower veered off to one side, and 
dragged me down. In the instant 
when my nose was parting the 
grass, and the events of my past 
life were as a panorama before me, 
I resolved never to mow that ter- 
race again. A vow made at such 
a time is sacred. 

There are other things that I 
have not dwelt upon in these chap- 
ters. I might have told of the 
Italian umbrella mender and razor 
grinder, who caught us in a 
moment of weakness and mended 
the Little Woman’s umbrella, 


264 The Commuters. 


ground her scissors, and my axe 
and razor. I hope he will call 
again some day. The razor and 
scissors are ready for him. Also 
the axe. They are no longer sharp, 
but they will serve my purpose. I 
shall ask him to be seated, and I 
will shave him with the razor, and 
I will cut his hair with the scissors. 
Then, if he still survives, I shall 
use the axe. 

I also contemplated doing a 
chapter on a trained nurse I had. 
I need not go into the particulars 
of my ailment. Suffice it to say, it 
was something that great men 
often die of, and I was scared. I 
know now what a trained nurse 
means. It is a nurse trained to 
sleep under any circumstances. I 
have never seen one so well trained 
as mine. She was slightly deaf, 
and snored, while I watched the 
clock and threw my shoes at her 


Things I Have Not Told. 265 


when it was medicine-time. She 
enjoyed her visit with us. She 
liked the Little Woman’s cooking, 
and when the Little Woman fell 
ill she liked mine, and stayed on. 
She said my chocolate was some- 
thing unusual, and she had such 
passion for my breakfast-food that 
once, in a moment of preoccupa- 
tion, I addressed her as Mrs. Petti- 
john. 

I meant to have made something 
out of a shopping expedition of the 
Little Woman’s — a sort of bar- 
gain-counter disaster that occurred 
when she wandered off one day 
alone. Not that the Little Woman 
hasn’t good taste, but we all have 
these moments of aberration and 
economy. She came home with 
some flower vases that I have never 
been able to find since. When a 
week later she suggested that I 
needed a smoking-table, and I 


266 


The Commuters, 


said, “ Don’t you buy it, honey,” 
she left the room. 

Yet she had her revenge. We 
needed a butter-dish, and I said I 
would bring it home next day. I 
didn’t like the assortment I met. 
They seemed too big. Then just 
as I was leaving I discovered a 
number of smaller ones on a side- 
table, and asked the clerk why she 
hadn’t shown me these before. 
She was silent — in contrition, I 
thought — while I looked at them 
and expressed approval. They 
were not round, like the others, nor 
so large. Neither were they so 
deep, though they had the same 
little movable bottoms, and seemed 
in every way desirable. Arriving 
home, I exhibited my purchase 
with enthusiasm. 

Isn’t it pretty? ” I said. “Don’t 
you think it a jolly butter-dish?” 


Things I Have Not Told, 267 


A peculiar smile grew about the 
Little Woman’s mouth. 

“ Why, yes, I suppose it would 
do for butter,” she said, “ but don’t 
you think it would be better for 
soap? ” 

I find that I have overlooked 
our colored friends, the “ wash- 
ladies,” who begin so well that we 
grow exuberant in each new dis- 
covery. They start in by arriving 
promptly at seven, thankful to be- 
gin the day of labor with a word of 
greeting and a cup of coffee. At 
the end of the second week they 
arrive at eight, to discuss their 
family affairs over a hot break- 
fast. At the end of the fourth week 
they drop in at nine, and expect 
mince pie, served with cheese on 
the side. Then, having reached 
our limit of luxury, and having in- 
duced us to give away a number of 
things we shall need ever after. 


268 The Commuters, 


they disappear and send one of 
their relations. 

Also there was the colored man, 
who dug a ditch for me and after- 
ward borrowed two dollars. He 
assured me that if I were to send 
for him at midnight he would 
come and work it out. I suppose 
I made a mistake in not sending 
for him at that time. When one 
morning I did send, he failed to 
appear, but returned word that his 
mother-in-law was dead. Two 
weeks later I sent for him again. 
That killed his sister-in-law. I 
gave up after that. I feared I 
should destroy all his wife’s 
people. 

These are among the chapters 
I did not write. Most of them are 
by the way, and not necessarily a 
part of that suburban life which 
we of the fields find sweet, in spite 
of the overdrawn caricature, and 


Things I Have Not Told, 269 


the murmur of the musical mos- 
quito. The caricature we scorn, 
and it has been lately discovered 
that only one brand of the mos- 
quito bites. Also, that even this 
variety does not exist entirely upon 
human beings. We have been led 
to believe that all were biters, and 
that humanity was their one article 
of diet. The mosquitoes them- 
selves, so far as we have inter- 
viewed, have never denied this. 
Now that a court of inquiry has 
investigated and silenced the tra- 
ducers, it would seem that the final 
sting is to be removed from 
suburban life and the pursuit of 
rural happiness. 


270 


The Commuters, 


XVIIL 

As to Happiness, 

T O those contemplating rural 
life I may say that living in 
the country is not a perennial 
round of bliss. Neither is it neces- 
sarily a life of drudgery, under- 
taken for the sake of economy and 
the children. Happiness anywhere 
is a good deal a matter of tempera- 
ment — a willingness to make the 
best of things as we find them, with 
a view to making them better by 
and by. Unless we are inclined to 
do this, the Hunt for Happiness 
will presently develop into a Lost 
Cause, and there are a good many 
people who appear to be engaged 
in just this sort of a quest. They 


As to Happiness. 271 


do not hunt for happiness. They 
hunt for shortcomings, and they 
always find them. They always will 
find them, anywhere this side the 
soundless gates. When I meet a 
man whose only opinion of a local- 
ity or condition is a catalogue of 
drawbacks, I know immediately 
that heaven is his home. Whether 
he ever reaches it or not is another 
matter. Perhaps he wouldn’t be 
pleased with it, after all. It would 
seem as well to anticipate some of 
the joys of a future state in the 
climate of which we have been led 
to believe there is at least an ele- 
ment of uncertainty. Don’t expect 
to find a perfect spot in this old 
worn-out world. Don’t look for 
the flower of happiness on the dark 
side of life. It doesn’t grow there. 
Be an optimist. 

Having now become an opti- 
mist, select your habitation. Pick 


272 


The Commuters. 


it out on a sunny day, for your first 
impression will linger and become 
a memory worth while. As to lo- 
cality, almost anywhere within fif- 
teen miles of the city (I am speak- 
ing of New York), with good 
train service, is as near in point 
of time as the up-town trolley dis- 
tances, and far more comfortable 
in point of travel. I have held to 
a strap, with my feet freezing on a 
wet floor, and been bumped and 
banged about for a hundred blocks 
or more, night in and night out, 
for months at a time, — delayed by 
teams, breakdowns, and blockades, 
— to find at the other end a scant 
supply of steam going, and no 
place to get really warm. I tried 
to make the best of these things 
then, and I did ; but they are over 
now, and I can damn them, and I 
do. 

Suburban trains are rarely over- 


As to Happiness. 273 


filled, and night and morning there 
are expresses that bowl along 
through pleasant fields. These 
trains are well warmed, luxurious, 
and swift of travel. Ten miles out, 
and within reasonable distance 
from your station, means an hour 
from your door to your office; and 
it is always the same, for there are 
no heavy coal-trucks on the track 
ahead, with a driver who doesn’t 
heed the fact that there are a string 
of trolleys ” behind him, or care 
that you have an engagement with 
a man at nine o’clock, or a din- 
ner at 6.30. No blockades — no 
currents to be shut off. Suburban 
trains run on time, as you will dis- 
cover if you try to take one and 
count on as much as ten seconds 
of latitude. You may get the train. 
It will depend on whether you can 
make up ten seconds in the dis- 
tance you have to cover. 


274 Commuters, 


The suburban resident reaches 
his office at nine, and his home at 
6.30, if these are his hours. If 
he does not do so it is because 
he misses his train, and those who 
are expecting him know that there 
is another twenty minutes or half- 
hour to wait, and won’t be ner- 
vously watching every car that jars 
and jangles by — waiting as much 
as two hours until the blockade 
opens. 

Having now settled the trans- 
portation question, we will speak 
of location. Pick high ground. 
That sounds like unnecessary ad- 
vice, but I’ve seen so many who 
didn’t that I think maybe they for- 
got just those three words. Per- 
haps they remembered and didn’t 
care. Perhaps they like mosqui- 
toes, and malaria, and water in 
their cellars. If they do, then low 
ground is a good selection. To 


As to Happiness, 275 


my mind, the high hilltop isn’t the 
best, either. The winter blast is 
sometimes abroad in its strength, 
and the hilltop suffers. Half or 
two-thirds the way up seems more 
desirable, facing the sunrise or the 
south, and not more than ten min- 
utes’ walking distance from the 
station, or five minutes dead run. 
Either exercise is beneficial, pro- 
vided you don’t have heavy bag- 
gage or try to finish your breakfast 
as you fly, in accordance with the 
comic-paper idea. 

Get two lots if you can, — one 
for the house, one for the children, 
— and in either case leave room 
for a garden. Don’t be without 
your garden — even if it be only 
five feet square, and have nothing 
in it but a few radishes, lettuce, 
and beans, with a bunch or two of 
old-fashioned flowers. You can get 
more joy out of a little dab of 


276 The Commuters, 


ground like that — more exercise, 
self-esteem, and real home feeling 
than you can get out of an acre that 
you don’t have time to bother with, 
and have to let your weeds and 
things go unharvested or be turned 
over to some soulless workman to 
attend. 

As to the house itself, if you buy 
one that is already built, look it 
over as carefully as you can, from 
garret to cellar. Then, without 
knowing anything in particular 
about houses, trust something to 
your general impression. There is 
a sort of subconsciousness in all of 
us that sees more than the conscious 
eye, and rarely leads us far wrong, 
if we trust it. Nevertheless, it is 
a good plan to see if the chim- 
neys draw. The subconsciousness 
might forget to look up the chim- 
neys, and it is a good deal easier 
to light a newspaper or two and 


As to Happiness, 277 


see that the smoke goes where it 
belongs, than to pay four dollars 
and eighty cents a day to a mason 
to litter up your house with recon- 
struction. Also try the plumbing, 
and see that the water-pipes are not 
on the northwest corner of the 
house, with no packing between 
the floors. That is a cold corner, 
and some J anuary morning you are 
likely to have water everywhere 
except the places you need it most. 
These are simple things, — easy to 
look after, — hard to remedy if 
wrong. 

Don’t fail to have an open fire, 
either coal or wood, the latter for 
choice. A country home is not 
complete without a blazing hearth. 
Even when you do not use it, the 
knowledge that it is there is com- 
forting, while on dull days and 
chill mornings it becomes the 
heart and happiness of the house- 


278 The Commuters. 


hold. Many a man goes to his 
club or to more questionable com- 
fort because there is no firelit cor- 
ner at home. There may be other 
reasons, but just now we speak of 
the open fire. Nor is it expensive. 
As ventilation it saves doctor bills. 
Also as a vitalizer, for its direct 
radiation ranks next to the sun 
itself. Doctor Cook, the Antarctic 
explorer, found that during the 
long polar night he could restore 
action and vigor to his debilitated 
crew by placing them stripped be- 
fore blazing coals and baking them 
— first on one side, then on the 
other — like turkeys. Being baked 
that way would seem likely to 
make a man active and vigorous, 
at least for a few minutes, and, as 
I say, such a fire is not especially 
expensive, considering the number 
of men you could bake with a cord 
of wood or a ton of coal. Suppose 


As to Happiness, 279 


a cord of wood does cost about six 
dollars, and lasts only about two 
months! Is there any more pleas- 
ure and benefit to be had out of 
any other six dollars? Why, gentle 
reader, you know very well that 
you and I have each spent more 
than that in one evening, and had 
nothing to show for it next morn- 
ing but a headache that we would 
have been willing to trade for one 
piece of kindling. 

Perhaps you will prefer to buy 
a home without a fireplace, and 
have the fun of building one, as 
we did. If you have ideas, for- 
bearance, and money, you can get 
rid of them in that way. If you 
have persistence, you may get 
something near what you want. 
But stop all other work while mat- 
ters are in progress, and watch 
every brick that goes into your 
chimney. 


28 o 


The Commuters, 


You may prefer to build your 
entire house, but in the face of this 
proposition I gasp, and words re- 
fuse to come. I can imagine the 
general possibility of building a 
house. But I can also imagine that 
there might be a good many things 
the matter with it when completed. 
Then it would be on my ground, 
and there would be no easy way 
of getting it off. Rather would I 
take my pick from houses that 
the other man has built. His be it 
to combat and coerce the carpen- 
ter, the mason, and the plumber. 
Mine to consider and compromise 
on the result. 

While I am on this subject, I 
should like to speak of the me- 
chanics. I should like to speak to 
the mechanics. I should like to 
ask them why they consider that 
the man who has earned enough to 
pay them four or five dollars a day 


As to Happiness. 281 


for their labor is without taste or 
knowledge as to what he wants; 
why they are unwilling to give it 
to him ; why they regard the man 
who pays as a sort of necessary 
imbecile nuisance; why they are 
more willing to deceive and dam- 
age and destroy than they are to 
make a kindly and honest effort to 
please him — to really give him a 
fair exchange for the money they 
receive? I should like to ask most 
of them, as honest men, why they 
do not learn their trades with some 
thoroughness and practise them 
with some care before they enter 
a union in order to obtain the 
wages of skilled workmen? I am 
not opposed to union on principle. 
Far from it; but I believe there is 
more harm done to the great cause 
of labor, to honest, faithful, and 
capable workmen, as well as to the 
prosperity of a great nation, by 


282 


The Commuters, 


unions, as they are to-day, than 
could be wrought by any blight or 
disease or drought or seismic up- 
heaval that the mind of man could 
conceive or the forces of nature 
bring to culmination. There are 
men belonging to unions and re- 
ceiving (not earning) four dollars 
a day, who cannot saw a board 
straight, who cannot take a meas- 
ure correctly, who cannot cut a 
piece of lumber to fit a particular 
place without wasting more mate- 
rial than it takes to fill the opening. 
I have known of a carpenter who 
cut a hole in a floor for a new 
chimney, which was afterward 
located at the other end of the 
room. He replaced the pieces in 
the first hole, but instead of putting 
them back as they came out, he 
turned them end for end, which 
would not have mattered so much, 
only that the room had a painted 


As to Happiness, 283 


green border. Reversing this bor- 
der made a curious green spot in 
the floor, and a peculiar-looking 
break in the border. Such men as 
this one are the very life of the 
unions, and the death of worthy 
achievement. Outside of the un- 
ions they would not earn a dol- 
lar a day. The really skilled work- 
men, who are in the minority, they 
force into the unions against their 
will. I have talked with a good 
man here and there, and I know 
what they have told me. To the 
bungler and the agitator and the 
walking delegate, large benefits 
accrue. To the progressive me- 
chanic, and to the public who pays, 
the union of to-day is a blight and 
a curse! Understand, I do not 
speak from the standpoint of the 
man of means, born to the purple 
and without understanding of a 
workman’s life. I toil, and I have 


284 The Commuters. 


always toiled. I have handled a 
saw and a paint-brush for pay. I 
did not handle them very well, but 
better than many of those who are 
in the unions to-day. My sympa- 
thies are all with labor, as a class, 
but not with all laborers as indi- 
viduals. Of every honest, well- 
meaning workman I would be the 
bosom friend. I will share his 
lunch. I will drink beer out of 
his pail. I will borrow money of 
him, if he will let me have it. But 
if he gives me bad plumbing, or a 
leaky roof, or drops a brick in my 
chimney, he is the people’s enemy, 
and I will destroy him. Some 
night in a dark alley I will lie in 
wait for him. I will have the 
brick, or the gas-pipe, or a section 
of scantling ready. I will secure 
his attention with them as he 
passes, and I will render a public 
service. 


As to Happiness. 285 


I have also a word or two for the 
builder — the man who under- 
takes your job. I am not one of 
those, at least, not now, who be- 
lieves that one ought to be able to 
make a few marks on a piece of 
paper and call in a builder with 
the expectation that he will catch 
the idea and put up a satisfactory 
house. The builder who can do 
that is dead. Indeed, I doubt if he 
ever really lived, except in tradi- 
tion. Any builder, however good, 
must have plans, carefully con- 
ceived and conscientiously exe- 
cuted. The man who starts out to 
build with nothing but two photo- 
graphs and some pencilings of his 
own, must fall by the wayside. He 
may get something better than he 
conceived, but the risk seems extra 
hazardous. It is next to impossi- 
ble to get things even with the best- 


286 The Commuters, 


laid and most elaborate plans. It 
is of this I would speak now. 

We might reasonably suppose 
that we could give an architect’s 
plans to skilled workmen, — I 
mean workmen who draw skilled 
wages, — and go away on a vaca- 
tion, to find the house complete 
and well constructed upon our re- 
turn. If I were a rich man I 
would build such a house — as an 
experiment. I would go to my 
architect and say, Draw me a 
plan for a house to cost five thou- 
sand dollars, complete.” Then I 
would take the plan to a builder, 
and I would say to him, “ Get 
skilled workmen, and build me 
this house. I am going away, and 
I wish it to be ready on my return.” 
Then I would take a vacation for 
any length of time he might spec- 
ify, and I would overstay for 
good measure. Yet upon my re- 


As to Happiness. 287 


turn the foundation would be still 
unlaid, though his excuses would 
be like unto a walled city. I 
should grow old in vacations while 
that house was being built. And 
when at last it was finished, and 
paid for, — when I had settled 
with my other creditors, and was 
starting for the almshouse, — I 
would present it to mine enemy. 

Perhaps you will say there 
should have been a contract as to 
price and period. Perhaps you 
are right; yet I have known men 
who have gone straight from con- 
tract-houses to the house of lunacy. 
I prefer old age and the county 
farm. 

Small contracts, you will say. 
Build largely and you will find it 
different. But suppose I cannot 
build largely? Suppose I only 
want a bungalow of two rooms? 
If I pay union wages, am I not at 


288 The Commuters. 


least entitled to honest effort and 
a kind word now and then, from 
the man who is putting in my foun- 
dation, and getting most of it 
wrong? And as for big jobs, how 
about those great buildings that 
collapse here and there when half- 
finished, because they are too flim- 
sily built to hold together until 
their shells of walls are braced and 
stayed and roofed, and so turned 
over to the owner as being well 
and properly constructed? How 
about those great buildings just off 
Fifth Avenue that were con- 
demned last year before they were 
finished, because they tipped and 
leaned and sagged and threatened 
a million lives? Those were big 
enough jobs. Big jobs to put up, 
— big jobs to take down, and the 
contractors and builders and work- 
men were well and properly paid. 
I have just made two mottoes, or, 


As to Happiness. 289 


rather, I should say, a motto and 
a commandment. “ Eternal vig- 
ilance is the price of a good job.” 
That is the motto; and the com- 
mandment, “ If your contractor 
deceives you, slay him. There is 
no other recourse.” 


2go 


The Commuters, 


XIX. 

As to Further Happiness. 

H aving now got our house 
bought or built, and the 
workmen properly con- 
demned and executed, we will 
take a brief look at its contents. 
Have plenty of bric-a-brac shelves 
over your doors, and extending 
along the walls. Bits of china and 
the like collect as the years pass, 
and you want a safe and decorative 
place to keep them. Walls should 
be plain — the plainer the better, 
and there is nothing so restful to 
the eyes or so good for pictures as 
the soft, green, heavy cartridge- 
paper, with several shades lighter 
for the ceilings. Some forms of 


As to Further Happiness, 291 


striped paper will be compara- 
tively harmless, and even spotted 
paper, where the spots are suffi- 
ciently invisible, may be endured. 

Yet it is dangerous to experiment 
with these deadly things. The re- 
sult is so uncertain. I knew a 
woman who more than ten years 
ago contracted a case of Spotted 
Paper in its most violent form. She 
is almost entirely over it now, but 
it has left its mark and shadow on 
her life. Often, too, it seems beau- 
tiful in the beginning, like the 
hectic flush, that has sorrow 
somewhere behind. I beg of you, 
beware of the fatal fascination of 
spotted paper. 

What is said of walls applies as 
well to floor coverings. They 
should he quiet and soft in tone. 
Rugs are in great favor, and must 
eventually take the place of all 
cut-and-sewed carpetings. I am 


292 


The Commuters. 


not altogether in sympathy, how- 
ever, with the advertiser who an- 
nounces “ Fur Animal Rugs,” and 
declares that “ these are the rugs 
that give character to the home. 
A tiger glaring before the grate 
in the library,” he says, “ a fox in 
the dining-room, and a wildcat in 
the hall add a touch of savage ele- 
gance that nothing else can give.” 

He is doubtless right about the 
“ savage elegance,” but that isn’t 
just the sort of atmosphere I seek. 
A Bengal tiger isn’t the kind of 
‘‘ character ” I want to find in my 
library, and I do not especially 
hunger for a fox in my dining- 
room. Neither do I wish to meet 
a wildcat in my hall — partic- 
ularly if I am returning at a late 
hour, after dining with friends. I 
have been nearly frightened into 
spasms by a tame cat — poor old 
Pussum, who had been left up-stairs 


As to Further Happiness, 293 


by mistake, and had sat up for me. 
He rubbed against my leg in the 
dark, and if he hadn’t purred just 
then I should have screamed for 
help. He frightened the Little 
Woman, too, on another night 
when I was out and he wasn’t, but 
that is by the way. No, I do not 
care for a menagerie, even a dead 
one. I prefer the more quiet 
things — the fabrics of the East. 

The Orientals weave and mingle 
their colors harmoniously, but even 
the Orientals in these days are in- 
fluenced by the taste and commerce 
and greed of the West, and their 
more gaudy patterns may be safely 
avoided. A rug should not be too 
pronounced in its design and color 
scheme. It is not necessary in or- 
der to be beautiful that its pattern 
should suggest an assortment of 
corsets, or even of Christmas-trees. 
Let it mix and mingle and make 


294 Commuters. 


the heart glad with hues and hints 
as of spilled wine and the faded 
bloom and glow of forgotten sum- 
mers. 

Draperies may be a bit brighter, 
but age and toning down will help 
the India print, or the Bagdad and 
Kelim stripe, however beautiful 
they may seem in the beginning. 
And draperies are always useful. 
A piece of old fish-net swings 
gracefully in an arch, and a single 
curtain breaks the length of a nar- 
row hall. 

Buy furniture carefully. It will 
accumulate with years, and you 
want your accumulation to be satis- 
factory. Furniture is a sort of 
statement of fact, and should be 
simple and unvarnished. I do not 
mean that it should be clumsy and 
crude, or even unpolished. I mean 
only that it should be lacking in 
lacquer, and chary of ornamenta- 


As to Further Happiness, 295 


tion. Again, as a statement of fact, 
it should not deteriorate with age, 
but become time-honored and rev- 
erenced as the years pass. The fur- 
niture of our grandfathers is 
sought for to-day, because it is 
substantial, — because it was pol- 
ished and not lacquered, — be- 
cause it was truth throughout and 
not a flimsy mockery. 

I do not assume to speak as one 
with authority in the matter of in- 
dividual selection, but I should 
shun gilt. A gold chair or a gold- 
leaf cabinet may look well in cer- 
tain places, but I cannot at this 
moment think where the place 
would be outside of a show-win- 
dow, unless, possibly, in a “ wild- 
cat ” hall. Neither can I conceive 
of anything more disheartening 
than to awake some morning with 
a fit of indigestion, and be com- 
pelled to sit in a gold chair and con- 


296 The Commuters. 


template bulgy gold panels where 
Watteau lay figures in fancy- 
dress costumes carry on weak flirta- 
tions that have no beginning, no 
end, and lead only to mania and 
suicide. Don’t have gilt! Don’t 
have things with weak, wabbly 
legs 1 Don’t buy because it’s cheap 1 
Wait till you can pay for the better 
thing. Have substance! Have 
Truth! Have Happiness! 


U Envoi. 


297 


U Envoi. 

B ut, lo, while I am writing 
it is Christmas Eve. Outside 
the skies are dull and low, 
and there is a stillness and a mys- 
tery on the fields — the stillness 
and the mystery that haye come 
down through the ages from that 
first Christmas Eve, when shep- 
herds and their flocks grew silent 
in the mystic hush that gathered on 
the plains of Bethlehem. 

Within and without the air is 
filled with the whisper of expecta- 
tion, and children tiptoe from 
room to room, half-fearful, half- 
hopeful of getting a glimpse of the 
wonderful old giver who must be 
very near now — the merry saint 


298 The Commuters, 


of sleigh and reindeer and all the 
marvel of toys and bonbons and 
cookies, so much finer and more 
wonderful than any that we hum- 
ble mortals can ever bake or buy. 

And now the younger ones 
eagerly hasten to bed that the long 
winter night may pass. Eagerly to 
bed to hear a story that after nine- 
teen hundred years few can repeat 
without moist eyes and faltering 
voice. Then for awhile Santa 
Claus waits on the Sand Man, and 
hardly have lids fallen when there 
are heard the signals of the good 
saint’s coming — the gallop of his 
reindeer and the faint, far echo of 
his bells. 

Morning — and a happy old- 
fashioned Christmas. In the play- 
room a tree, and through the open 
door the glow of the new fireplace 
with its bright logs and crackling 
flames. Everybody has been re- 


U Envoi. 


299 

membered. Even Pussum and 
family have a tree, a little one, 
upon which there are some bits of 
delicious steak and certain packets 
of very desirable catnip. The Pre- 
cious Ones are filling themselves 
with happiness. Within two days, 
at the present rate, everything will 
be eaten up but the tree. As for 
the Tiny Small One, she is making 
her presents felt by hammering 
them vigorously against every- 
thing within reach. 

On the little garden without, the 
snow lies white, and beyond the 
hill, where nobody lives, and 
where nobody is there to see, frost- 
elfins are sporting amid the grass. 
That is, of course, if there is any 
snow, any grass, and any hill when 
nobody is there to see them. I 
doubt these seeming realities some- 
times, and just now The Hope 
said to me: 


300 


The Commuters, 


“ Oh, papa, suppose this is all 
a dream! Suppose everything is a 
dream! Suppose there is no 
Christmas ! no tree ! That we only 
dream it all! ” 

Who knows! I have thought of 
that, too. But if it be a dream, let 
us dream happily, — let us dream 
forgivingly, even of those who 
have betrayed and despitefully 
used us. For be it of sleep or wak- 
ing, — of dreamland or reality, — 
it is the time of peace on earth, and 
to all mankind good-will. 
























MAR 23 1904 






MAR 26 1904 




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i 



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